


Partially

by SquigglyAverageJoe



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: (did not realize that was a tag), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, It doesn’t focus on high school though, M/M, This is turning into a lot more than just a zombie apocalypse AU, Time Travelling Lesbians, but I wanted to use that tag, technically, the others time travel too, this is gonna be fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:35:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquigglyAverageJoe/pseuds/SquigglyAverageJoe
Summary: After what was supposed to be a fun night at his senior prom, Vio founds himself in the middle of a panic attack out in the parking lot. In an attempt to calm himself down, he goes on a drive, fully intending to go back to his friends, only to get in a car wreck and believe he's killed a man. However, the man he killed was already dead and still is, probably—he also has a thirst for blood.In the nick of time, a boy his age in a black sports car drives up and together, the two of them try to figure out how to survive in the wake of a zombie apocalypse.But this isn't like the movies. Something is very, very wrong with everything that is happening. Not just the zombies, but the weird symptoms an infected person gets, how sudden it is, how strange it is for corpses to be able to walk, the horrible disasters happening everywhere, the fact that people appear just to destroy places that are safe, the fact that Vio hasn't known Shadow for more than a week, yet feels close enough to swear he's known him for years...Unfortunately, there is a lot more happening than just the mere apocalypse. At this point, Vio doesn't want him and his friends to just get out of this alive—he wants answers.
Relationships: Blue Link/Green Link/Red Link, Marin/Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Shadow Link/Vio Link
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34





	1. Problems (And The Dead, Namely The Dead) Arise

The music is still loud as Vio exits, pounding thrumming—he swore, as he left and walked right past the speakers, his bones had been vibrating the music was so loud. Now, the music is distant, the night air still warm because summer is either here or approaching, he isn’t sure, he can’t think about the seasons right now, not with the terrible migraine that is forming behind his eyes. The heat reaches his skin, even through the suit he has on—dark purple pants and a shirt with a white jacket over it all, simple, nice, _suffocating._

He slides into the front seat of his car and fights the urge to slam his forehead into the steering wheel until that terrible migraine disappears, but he doesn’t do that. That would just make the headache he has worse.

It was stupid, he thinks. Stupid of him to think that, when every other high school dance he had attended sucked, this one would be any different, but of course, other people were having lots of fun, it was just him. Dances weren’t his thing, but instead of accepting that, he wasted his time and money to enter an unbearably hot setting, jammed full of people—everywhere he looked there had either been those weird straight girls grinding on each other, people looking at him weird, or just his friends, having fun, forgetting he existed.

“Goddesses, this was stupid,” he mutters. Worse, he forgot to take his meds this morning. His anxiety levels are through the roof and he kind of wants to throw himself into oncoming traffic. _Even worse,_ he’s his friends’ ride after the dance, meaning he has to stay.

He sighs and takes a deep breath—does he go back in? Watch Blue and Red dance together, smiling happily at each other? Watch Zelda and Green hold hands and laugh? Make awkward eye contact with Erune only for her to smile like it’s all fine or something?

Someone raps at the window—Vio looks over and then rolls the window down. “Zelda?”

“Hey.” She looks at him, her eyes gentle. She went all out for prom, like literally everyone else—her dress is blush colored instead of the pink Vio expected to see—silk, shiny, her skirt falling to her ankles, round and full, the sleeves off shoulder, the neckline beaded with what looks like pearls, but Vio doesn’t think they’re real. Her hair is curled, her face made up but natural looking. She looks pretty. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Vio says. It’s obvious he’s lying. “I’ll be back in in a minute.”

“This isn’t because I asked Green out, is it?” She asks. “I...Totally get if you aren’t over him yet, I should have asked you first, Vio—“

“No, Zelda, it’s fine.” He isn’t entirely sure, but he can say it a thousand more times until he believes it. “Just...You know, kind of...tired.” _I hate this, I hate this so much._

There’s a pause. Zelda straightens out her skirt awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Vio. I knew I should have asked you, I made a...poor, hasty decision based purely off of teenage hormones.”

“No, really, it’s fine. I just...”

“What?”

Vio bit his lip. He wasn’t sure what to say. “It’s nothing. I’ll be back in there soon, swear. Just go back in there and dance with Green before he realizes we’re both gone.”

“...Are you sure?” Zelda asks, and Vio knows that he doesn’t have to be sure. Zelda is genuine and kind and sweet and she would be more than willing to talk this out with Vio and let him vent and complain, but that doesn’t seem fair to Vio—why should both of them be miserable out there when at least one of them belongs inside? Zelda looks like she should be Prom Queen, not suffering out in the approaching summer heat because Vio can’t get a grip on his emotions.

“Yeah, go back in there. It’s cool.”

“Alright.” She smiles gently and grabs her skirt, lifting it up so she can walk easier away, but she stops for a minute. “Take your time and all, but if you aren’t back in there in at least twenty minutes, I’m coming back out here to check on you, okay?” Without another word, she walks back towards the entrance.

Vio sighs and rubs at his temples. He doesn’t entirely know what his deal is. Maybe it’s all the little things? Maybe there’s something wrong with him? Other than the fact that there’s some weird brain goo his brain struggles to produce or however the hell depression works.

He sighs—and starts the car. He needs to go for a drive, clear his mind. He’ll be back in at least twenty minutes.

He rolls all the windows down and speeds out of the parking lot. Just twenty minutes, by himself.

“Hey,” Green says, with that smile that can make the world melt away. “Was Vio okay?”

“Yeah,” Zelda says. She moves to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but her white beaded bracelet gets caught on a tangle. She yanks it unceremoniously out. “He just needs a few minutes. I think this is a bit much for him.”

She’s sure Green can understand that—the last month had not been kind to any of them, especially Vio. It was like the entire month of May had it out for him in particular, and intended to chew him up and spit him out into June. April and May had worked together, definitely, just ganged up on him.

“Oh, Green says. “Look, it’s Lana.”

Zelda turns around and smiles. “Hey, Lana.”

“Hey, I was wondering when I’d see you two.” She smiles—her lipstick is blue, matching her hair and it’s a bit strange. Zelda eyes it and she notices, laughing. “Midna had me put it on. Dumb, right?”

“No, just...slightly weird, it’s kind of cool,” Zelda says. Lana’s wearing a blue dress with a hem line that hovers above her knees in the front but goes to her ankles in the back and white high heels with straps that go all over her calves. She looks pretty, Zelda thinks, but so does every girl here.

“Thanks. You look great! Have either of you seen...I mean, anyone at this point—Cia, Midna, Zant, any one?” She looks around. “It’s like the disappeared off the face of the Earth, I can’t find them anywhere.”

“I thought I saw Cia a moment ago,” Zelda admits. “But I wasn’t sure. I just thought because um...”

Lana waits. Zelda finally finishes. “In hindsight, it could have been anyone with dark skin in a dress that showed a lot of cleavage, I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’m sure I’ll find her some—“

There’s noises of alarm nearby. A red headed girl falls on her back, another girl in a yellow dress with a bow in her hair falling on top of her, looking unconscious. “Goddesses!” Someone shouts.

The music has stopped. Everyone is murmuring and Lana—who Zelda remembers is training to become a doctor or a surgeon or something similar—rushes forward.

She feels for a pulse. “I don’t think she’s breathing,” Lana says. “Someone! Call an ambulance!” And at least three people pull out their phones before finally one of them dials a number. “I know CPR, everyone, move!”

Zelda stands nearby, Green right next to her. “Oh my goddesses,” Zelda says, but at least someone is doing something instead of letting this girl just lie on the floor.

Lana’s staying remarkably calm, doing chest compressions, and Zelda swears she can hear sirens off in the distance but all of a sudden, the girl starts clawing at the floor while Lana does chest compressions, making a groaning noise. Lana stops what she’s doing. “Hey, are you okay?”

The girl sits up—she’s shaking, moving, but her eyes are glassy and there’s a weird tint to her skin.

Then she jumps at Lana, pinning her to the floor and taking a bite out of her face.

For a minute, it’s like no one was moving, like all of time has stopped—then the screaming starts. Not from Lana, who has a right to be screaming right now, but the red haired girl. Lana shouts, but it’s not a scream, shoving the girl off of her, but she gets right back up and grabs her ankle.

Lana slams her high heel into the girl’s chest and she backs off for a minute. In that minute, Green has moved forwards and pulls Lana to her feet while everyone else starts running towards the exit.

Lana does not look good—the bite on her face is gushing blood all over her dress, her eyes have widened drastically. Behind her, the girl has grabbed onto someone’s leg, someone who has clearly been trying to escape, and before they can even scream the girl tears their throat open and rips into their chest.

They all end up racing towards the exit too.

Twenty minutes have definitely not passed, but Vio’s phone is going crazy—vibrating like it is the end of the world. Vio isn’t stupid—he isn’t about to answer it while he’s driving. He pulls over and then flips it open—on the group chat between him and the others, Green and Red are both demanding his whereabouts and if he’s okay while Blue is pleading with him to find them, near the ambulances because something terrible has happened. 

Zelda isn’t texting at all, which is worrying so Vio immediately makes a U turn—only to slam on the brakes as someone barrels into his car.

He curses and for a moment, all is still. He doesn’t think they’re moving. He’s about to get out when they get up and Vio rolls his window down. It’s a man, he thinks. “Sir? Are you okay? I didn’t see you, are you alright?” Their arm is at a weird angle. “Do I need to call you an ambulance?”

The man growls. “...Sir?” He gets out. “Shit...” There is a puddle of blood and—his skin is rotten. Vio stops. “Shit.” The man stands there a minute and then lurches for him. His nails rake the air where Vio had been moments ago before he gets back in his car. The man groans, slamming his fist into the car as if that’s going to solve something and it takes Vio a moment before he sees headlights on a truck that is _barreling towards him._

“Shit!” He gets out quickly—the man lurches again for him, but the truck is already there—he can feel it race by, taking the walking corpse with it before it swerves and slams into a lamppost.

Vio isn’t sure what to do, since he hit a man with his car and the man might have died and might have tried to kill him, so his mind jumps to the logical realization that he just watched a collision happen. He pulls out his phone and dials 911l

He waits, but there’s another groan and he stills. He looks at the truck.

A woman with a cap on stumbles out, limping, but limping quickly as she locks her sights onto Vio. There is plenty more also coming, and Vio wonders if they heard the collision.

A black car is speeding on the road, swerving to avoid them and for a minute, Vio thinks they’re gonna pass him by as he stumbles away from the approaching woman, who holds her head at a weird angle that should make the hat she has on fall off, but the driver slams on the brakes and the passenger door opens. For a minute, Vio freezes, but who ever is inside shouts, “Get in!” And he rushes to the door.

The moment it closes, the driver doesn’t wait for him to buckle his seatbelt before speeding off.

He looks at the driver a minute—he has to be his age. He’s pale, with purple hair, blue eyes, but they’re narrowed and his knuckles are white on the steering wheel and he doesn’t stop for anything else. “What the hell were you doing on the side of the road?” He asks.

“I pulled over, my friends were texting me like crazy.” They still are. “And I tried to make a U-turn and...I hit a guy and I think he’s dead.”

He looks over at him and does a double take. “Why are you in a suit?”

“Prom,” he says. He pulls out his phone—there’s all sorts of alerts going off. He tries to read them, but the driver takes a hard turn right and he almost drops his phone. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know! Shit!” The few people Vio sees are either losing their minds or being eaten by...

“What _are_ those?” Vio asks, as if he expects the driver to have an answer which he clearly doesn’t.

The driver keeps swerving to avoid wrecked cars, abandoned cars, people, or whatever those are. He honks his horn once, but it draws their attention and he’s back to speeding. “I don’t know what to do,” he says. His tire hits something that makes the car jerk, but they keep moving. “My house is all the way downtown.”

“My house isn’t far,” Vio says. “But my parents aren’t home. ...It’s just three blocks, take a right, we have a garage.”

“Okay!” The driver says. He takes such a hard right, they end up on the sidewalk. He goes a bit slower, but not much.

Vio pulls out his phone and looks at the text messages he’s gotten. A new thirty.

Red: So, just in case something bad happens, which might be me being kinda overdramatic, i just want u guys to know that u mean a lot to me and i am definitely poly and i didn’t know how to tell you Blue but I still love you and you all mean the world to me.

Blue: shit, red, you could have told me.

Red: I’m sorry.

Blue: you really are being overdramatic, but i love you too. I think it’s good though

Blue: shit

Blue: nevermind

Blue: t’s not good

Blue: they’re EVERYWHERE

Green: Yes they are

Zelda: Oh, Red, you sweet cinnamon roll, I’m sure it’s all gonna be fine. I want you guys to know that I really love you just as much Red, even WHEN YOU’RE A PURPLE IDIOT WHO DOESN’T ANSWER ANY OF THE TEXT MESSAGES HE SENT, YOU BETTER BE ALIVE, VIO.

“Hey,” the driver says. “Where’s your house?”

“On your right, the one with the really high driveway.” He swallows the lump in his throat and slides his phone back into his pocket. “I can get out and open the garage and you can just drive in.”

“...Okay.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t.

Vio moves as quickly as he can to the garage door, entering the four digits that make it open quietly. On the street, a few corpses watch him. 

The car gets inside the garage quickly and Vio does the same, closing the garage as the car engine quiets and stops. The driver gets out.

Vio stands there awkwardly for a minute. “Thanks.”

The driver is currently trying to buff out a small mark on the paint. He looks over at him. “What?”

“Thanks. For stopping for me. That could have been bad.”

He smiles. “Thanks for letting me into your garage. It’s really nice for a garage.”

It’s pretty true—it’s relatively clean, full of tools, spare tires, car jacks, oil, things to wash the car with. “Yeah—my father’s a mechanic, but he still doesn’t use half of these tools.

He nods. “My name’s Shadow.”

“Vio.” His phone vibrates again and he pulls it out. At the very least, Zelda texted, so she was fine.

He almost calls Green but chooses to call Zelda instead.

Zelda picks up after three rings. “WHERE ARE YOU?” She shouts into the phone. Vio can hear screaming and...gunfire?

“Um...Safe? Where are you? Are you guys—“

There’s more gunfire, louder. “No, but we’re fine. Shit, Vio, where did you go? Is everything okay?”

“I just went for a drive, and then I thought I accidentally killed someone with my car and then some guy picked me up and now...we’re in my garage.”

“...Wait, you took a stranger home with you?” Zelda asks. He can hear Blue saying, “Damn, that’s our bookworm! Getting laid in the apocalypse!”

“Well, yeah...” He looks over his shoulder. Shadow has his back to him. “He’s kind of hot. But that’s not the point, what’s happening?”

“Some sort of virus, I guess?” Zelda says. Another gun shot. “A girl on the dance floor dropped, Lana tried to give her CPR and she bit her and then ripped some guy open.”

“Is Lana okay?” Vio asks. He had been in Agricultural Science with her freshman year and had grown fond of her for a semester. Now, the fondness was a bit duller, but he still doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

“I was just with her by the ambulances. She’s alive, I think. Vio, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“...Shit! There’s so many!” He can’t remember Zelda swearing at any point in time. “I gotta go, Vio, just...take care of yourself, you hear? I’ll...I’ll try to text you again when I get a chance, we all will.” There’s another gunshot and the line goes dead.

Vio swallows, pocketing the phone. Shadow looks at him sadly. “You okay?”

“More or less.” He doesn’t want to talk about this. He looks at the door, leading from the garage into the laundry room. “Sorry, I should be inviting you inside.” He walks over to the door and opens it easily, holding it open for Shadow. “My parents are out of town, for work things, I think. ...They might not be getting back tomorrow.”

Now that they aren’t speeding down the highway or the neighborhood in the dark, Vio can get a good look at him, in stable lighting. He’s dressed in a black shirt and jeans, simple enough, but Vio notices the rip on the knee, the blood stain. “Do you, uh...need a bandaid?” Actually, there’s dots of blood all over Shadow.

“Um, yeah sure. Disinfectant would be nice if you have it.”

“Believe me, we do.” He goes to the kitchen and gets on his knees, opening the cupboard beneath the sink and grabbing a small, cloth pouch. He finds Shadow sitting on the hardwood floor of the living room, one of his pant legs rolled up. Quietly, he sits down in front of him, unzipping the pouch. “I threw together some sort of first aid some time ago, just in case something bad were to happen and I needed to take care of something minor.” He pulls out a small bottle of disinfectant—he knows he has a much larger bottle also below the sink. “I can set broken bones, perform CPR, and stitch up cuts.” He locks eyes with Shadow—he feels the strong need to fill the tense silence. “Pretty soon, I’ll be able to perform open heart surgery.”

Shadow laughs—it’s short, quiet, but fills the silence for a moment, and because of that, Vio loves it. “Well, I’ll let you do all the other stuff to me if I need it, but don’t practice that on me, okay?”

Vio smiles and pulls out a box of bandaids, but when he looks at Shadow’s knee closer, he doesn’t think a simple bandaid slapped on will do much. It’s a fair amount of blood. Nothing that needs stitching or anything, but a bandaid won’t cut it. He pulls out a roll of gauze instead and then a small bag of cotton balls.

“I just thought you were gonna pour some disinfectant on it and slap on a bandaid,” Shadow says.

“I _was_ going to, but...” He looks up again, meets his eyes again and looks away flushing. “You banged your knee up pretty bad. What exactly happened?”

Shadow sighs. “I was just...at home,” he says. “I live in a really poor, really populated neighborhood. I was babysitting for my neighbor, because for some reason, I thought that was a good idea. And...” He frowns—Vio soaks one of the cotton balls in disinfectant, but doesn’t interrupt. “...I was in the kitchen, making some popcorn because they wanted to watch something off of Netflix...Shit.” He threw his head back, onto the edge of the couch. He just stared at the ceiling. “The oldest, she was like, eleven, came out and told me that she felt sick. And I was like, ‘how sick? Should I call your parents?’ And she just kind of collapsed. And I went to check for a pulse, but I didn’t feel anything and she wasn’t breathing and immediately, her younger sister started freaking out and I couldn’t keep her out of the kitchen because the phone was in the living room, so I was in the living room calling 911.” Vio presses the cotton ball on the really nasty looking cut and Shadow hisses in a breath but doesn’t move away. Vio murmurs an apology, keeps going and lets him keep talking. “And the operator was like, ‘sorry, we’re really busy, a lot of stuff is happening right now’ and then I hear screaming and the operator was like, ‘is there anyone else in the house with you’ and I was already in the kitchen and...” He trails off.

Briefly, everything is quiet. Vio keeps cleaning the wound before he starts unwrapping the roll of gauze. Shadow starts talking again. “...The operator kept asking for me to respond. If I was okay. What was happening. The...The girl who just collapsed? She...” Vio starts to wrap it around his knee. “She was back up...On all fours. Covered in blood. Her little sister was on the floor. ...She ripped her chest open.”

“That’s sick,” Vio says, finishing his wrapping job.

“Yeah. And she looked up at me—covered in blood, mouth full of what looked like shards of bone and organ pieces and just gore, and...She screamed, at the top of her lungs and spat it out and stumbled backwards and...I don’t know, she was different suddenly. Like, before, it wasn’t like she was seeing me, and now it was like...she was aware.” He shook his head. When the police came, the escorted me out, but they shot them both, I think the younger one got up? And then, another cop collapsed and...Did the same thing to another cop. When the cop they attacked got up, I suddenly didn’t trust ay of the other cops to not also die and bolted out of there.”

“Do you know what those things are?” Vio asks.

Shadow snorts. “Have you never watched a single movie in your life?”

“They aren’t zombies, though. I mean...This isn’t a movie.”

“What do you think they were then?” Shadow asks.

Vio obviously avoids answering. “That’s not too tight or anything? Can you move your leg?”

“Yeah. Not good, but I can.” He got to his feet and fixed his jeans. “Um, thanks.”

“Your welcome.” Vio sighs. “Why don’t you...” He grabs the TV remote off of a small, darkly colored coffee table and hands it to him. “Put on the News or something you want to watch or something, I’ll go make some hot chocolate.”

Shadow nods. “Seems like a good way to deal with this.”

He calls from the living room as Vio goes to the kitchen. “So, I told you what I was doing out, what were you doing?”

“I...” He grabs a jug of milk from the fridge and poursit into two mugs. “I went to prom with my friends, drove them, and then...left early. And then they called me, wanted me to come back because something happened, and then I thought I hit a guy and thought I killed him, so I got out and he tried to kill me instead. And then you came.”

Shadow’s silent. Vio places the mugs in the microwave, turns around and Shadow’s at the counter. “I thought you drove them. Did they have a ride home?”

Vio pauses. “Um...I just wanted to go out for a drive. Like, twenty minutes. I needed a break.”

“Why?”

The microwave beeps, Vio doesn’t answer and goes to get them, pulling a chocolate mix out of the cupboard. “I thought you were dating one of your friends, the one who laughed at everyone on St. Patricks Day? Was he like, a bad dancer or something?”

“Oh, Green.” Vio swallows. “We broke up.”

Shadow’s expression falters. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“I knew it was gonna happen,” Vio sighs. “Everyone did. I’m going to a college out of the country next year, and Zelda was going to the same college as him, and have you seen Zelda?” He shakes his hand. “Of course it was gonna happen, I knew.”

“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t sound incredibly sorry—more like a touch of empathy, knowing hat it probably sucks, but he doesn’t linger on the subject. 

“Wait, how do you know about Green? Wait...” He looks at him a bit closer, sliding the mug into his hands. “You’re in my drama class. You haven’t shown up to school in two months.”

“Yeah, I uh...” He grins, wolfishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Got expelled.”

Vio feels a spike of alarm. “Expelled?” He asks.

“I broke a guy’s arm because he was making fun of...someone for being gay and kept on making jokes about...” He clears his throat. “He ended up playing the victim and I was the one who got in trouble.”

“Geez.” Normally, he doesn’t think he’d believe something like that, but Shadow doesn’t have much to gain from lying. “People are assholes, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess I’m the asshole that broke his arm, but he’s a bigger asshole.” Shadow takes a sip of his mug.

They stay in silence for awhile. After a minute, Shadow asks, “What now?” Vio stays silent, and Shadow elaborates. “What do we do now? I mean, I never really believed that this would happen, I’m not prepared for this, but...do we wait for everything to sort themselves out? With the way the modern world is, I don’t think we have too much to worry about. Just about everyone in my neighborhood has a gun and in all the movies, a headshot usually kills a zombie, right?”

“I don’t know,” Vio says. “You have a point, but this isn’t a movie.” He runs a hand through his hair. “But...It must be some sort of virus or something, right? An illness? ...Those girls you were babysitting, do you think the other, because you said she got up, do you think she got up because she was bitten, like in the movies?”

“Probably.”

“...Then it’s probably transmittable.” Vio stares into his coffee mug. “And we probably don’t want to be in this city. Too high of a population. ...My family has a second home, in the country. It’s...It’s like a four day drive, and we only have your car, though.”

“It’s kind of beat up,” he says. “But your father’s a mechanic, right? If he has car parts in his garage, I might be able to fix my car up a bit? Maybe put a good bumper on. We might be able to get out of here.”

“...My mother has a gun in a safe,” Vio admits. “Along with a bunch of money and some jewelry and some ammo. ...We could take it. Just in case.” He frowns. “Or maybe we should stick with something that will make less noise? I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”

Shadow swallows the remainder of his mug—even though it’s his second drink of it. “I do.” He responds to Vio’s questioning stare with, “I don’t use it, I just know how.”

“...About how long do you think it would take?” Vio asks. “To get your car all...” He doesn’t know what word to use.”

“Maybe a day. Depends on what’s in your garage.”

Vio looks at the TV. A woman in a pantsuit warns them to stay inside and to avoid engaging with any people who might be infected, advising them to lock their doors, saying the governor might invoke a total shutdown that will have anyone who tries to leave shot, depending on how the situation goes. “I’ve the key to the front door of it also in the safe. If we’re actually gonna do it, I think we should at least wait a day before we commit.”

Shadow looks at him and shrugs. “Fair enough.”

The knot in his stomach says there is no way this is going to go away, no matter how long they wait. “I can make up the guest bedroom for you. We have three. They’re a little dusty, probably, but they’re nice.”

Shadow smiles at him. “That’s nice.” He stands up. “Where’s your bathroom?”

“There’s one by one of the guest rooms, here; I’ll show you.” He leads the way down one of the hallways. Shadow follows right behind, his hands in his pockets. He stops at one door and opens it. “That’s the bathroom and right across the hall—“ He opens the door across the hall. “—Is your bedroom, I guess.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Vio looks at his phone while he gets the guest room ready.

He changes the sheets while he looks for any missed calls and squishes a spider on the wall, albeit reluctantly, while he briefly looks at the news. Usually, he lets spiders live and throws them out a window or something, but he’s a little too scared to open a window.

“This generation,” Shadow says, suddenly at the doorway, smiling. “So obsessed with technology!”

Vio rolls his eyes but he’s smiling too—he shouldn’t be. There’s a knot in his stomach. He feels sick. “Just wondering if my friends are okay. They aren’t texting.”

Shadow shrugs. “I don’t have a cellphone. My parents took it away when I got expelled.”

“Geez, and you got expelled _right_ before prom, too,” Vio says, fixing a pillow. “I bet a bunch of guys from GSA were disappointed.”

Shadow chuckles. “Wouldn’t have been able to afford a ticket. Or a suit.”

Vio turns to him. “You think things are gonna blow over?”

“No, not really.” He moves some hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know what to think—I watched a kid eat another kid. I really need a drink.”

“Goddesses, I do too,” Vio says. “My parents have a cabinet full of this peanut butter whiskey that smells like happiness. Want to do shots while we watch the news?”

“What better way to spend the evening?” Shadow asks, and Vio realizes he hadn’t expected Shadow to actually want alcohol.

Too nervous to back down, Vio nods. “Just go back to the kitchen, I’ll be there in a sec, let me finish your bed.”

Shadow nods and walks back out—Vio stares for way longer than he should at his retreating back in the hallway. He finishes quickly and makes his way to the kitchen. “We haven’t had people over in a long time. My parents are almost always never home, and they don’t want me to have friends over when they’re gone.”

“Why not?” Shadow asks. “Aren’t you like eighteen?”

“I think they don’t want me to invite anyone over because I’m eighteen.” He kneels down on the floor and opens a cupboard his parents think he doesn’t know contains alcohol. “Old enough to buy cigarettes, to pretend I’m twenty one, legal age of consent. I honestly think they worry they’ll be gone for like, a day and in that day I’m gonna throw six orgies? I don’t know. I’m their only kid, they’re over protective.” He pulls out a reasonably large bottle, slightly more than half-full. He wonders if his parents would notice the absence of a few shots—plus, Shadow looks small, probably a lightweight.

“You don’t have any siblings?” Shadow asks. “I thought for sure you were related to Zelda, or Blue, or Red.”

“Because we’re all blonde? No. My mom had a bunch of miscarriages, but I’m pretty sure I was an accident.” He pulls two shot glasses from the same cupboard. “Plus, Zelda’s Japanese. I’ve no idea why she’s blonde and why her eyes are blue, but she’s Japanese. I am not, we definitely aren’t related.”

“I guess I assumed,” Shadow said. “It’s a big house—I thought, for sure, there wasn’t just three people living here.”

Vio shrugs and fills the shot glasses, sliding one over to Shadow carefully. “Nope. Mostly just me here. When I was younger, it was lonely, but goddesses—now with this going on, I don’t think I would want a sibling to share the house with. I’d just worry about them, and then, if I was here by myself and something happened to them...Geez.” He takes his shot quickly—and coughs. “I’m getting a soda.”

Shadow downs it easily. “I’m an only child too.” He pours himself another shot. “Parents also are never home, but I’m never _really_ alone. The walls in our apartment are paper thin, I get to have conversations with my neighbors.”

“Fun.” The soda’s loud as it opens, cracking the silence that waist behind every word like a whip. “You get along with them well?”

“Nope.” Vio did another shot, Shadow too. “I dunno—but I mean, _my_ parents wanted _me,_ they just can’t afford me.” He freezes, Vio’s soda an inch from his lips. “Sorry, that sounded rude. I mean...I’m sure your parents are happy to have you, I just...Sorry.”

Vio waves it off. “They actually didn’t. I’ve overheard them. Apparently, my mom’s mom didn’t want her and got pregnant when she was eighteen, but she kept her and she lived her entire life knowing she wasn’t wanted.” He looks down at his shot glass. “So she did everything to avoid having me, because she didn’t want to be like her mother. She was on the pill, they used condoms, and...she still got pregnant. She missed her period, bought a pregnancy test and...then she couldn’t afford an abortion, but she didn’t want to be like _her_ mother and let her kid do whatever they wanted and hoped they somehow killed the selves in their recklessness, so she wrapped me in bubble wrap, never let me leave the house and drank a bunch of wine to cope with the stress.” A flicker of frustration wells up inside him—again. She thought _she_ was stressed? Vio knew he wasn’t planned or wanted, had missed out of almost everything in his life. He wasn’t allowed to go on field trips, he could only join GSA who met at lunch and that he had to keep quiet because he was so not close with his mother, LGBTQ+ rights never came up in conversation. He had few friends who had stopped inviting him to things because he could never go—for any reason. His mother always said no. “She loves her job more than her family. Can’t say I blame her, I think she only married my father because she was pregnant. ...I had to beg her to let me go to prom, and I did that when I was still dating Green, and had something to look forward to.”

“Damn.” Shadow’s quiet. “That...sounds horrible. ...Especially since prom ended with—“ he glanced at his phone. “A widespread pandemic. These things are showing up everywhere. They’re calling them the infected, but we don’t know what they’re infected with.”

Vio shrugs. “It’s cool, I mean...Now I get to live through the zombie apocalypse. A story for the children I might not have.”

Shadow smiles. “We’ll get through this. And we’ll get through it drunk off our asses and playing Cards Against Humanity because how else would we do it?”

Vio smiles too. Shadow is weirdly friendly, and warm—it’s easy to act like they aren’t strangers. Vio slides into the seat next to him, takes his soda from Shadow’s hand and takes a sip—two shots of whiskey on an empty stomach was a bad idea and it doesn’t go well with his soda. “No Cards Against Humanity. Not while we’re driving.”

Shadow grins. “Why _not_ while we’re driving?”

“Do you want to crash?”

“If we crash, it’s because I’m drunk, not because I’m playing Cards Against Humanity.”

Vio laughs.

“You’re really handsome,” Shadow says, like it’s the most casual, nonchalant thing to say. “In that suit...Like, _really_ handsome. Green’s dumb for letting go of you when you’re such a catch.”

“Thanks,” Vio says. “But he’s happier with Zelda. Plus, Zelda’s also a catch.”

“Oh, but she’s _nothing_ compared to you.” Shadow’s smile is a little lazy looking, and he’s probably a little too tipsy already. “I mean...You’re in like, all the honor classes, right? Super smart, super hot...” This is started to sound a little odd for Shadow to say. “He’s dumb, really dumb.”

Vio realizes he’s been leaning forward. He leans back a bit, almost falls out of the stool and wipes at his eyes. “I think we’re drunk. I’ve never actually done shots before.”

“Ha, me neither.” Shadow’s still smiling. “Mostly just like, cheap beer and the occasional wine cooler. I think I had some vodka once?”

His phone vibrates, a text. Vio pulls it out—it’s from his mom, a simple _Are you home?_

Leea: If your home, lock the doors and windows. Don’t answer for anyone. Stay in your room. Your father and I are gonna be away for a bit longer, we’re in a hotel.

Vio looks at Shadow and just asks how long she thinks she’s going to be gone.

Leea: Indefinitely. STAY HOME.

Vio doesn’t respond. He looks at Shadow. “I’m gonna see if the news has any updates.” He stands and makes his way to the living room. Shadow follows behind and sits on the couch—Vio can feel his gaze on him as he turns on the TV and goes through the channels. There is nothing new.

Vio sighs and sits back, next to Shadow. “If we’re going to actually try to escape,” Shadow says, and the thought that enters Vio’s mind with the meaning of the words is sobering. “We should commit to it. Now.”

He pauses. “We should have plenty of non perishable food. I can pack some. And we’ve an old fashioned GPS in the garage too.”

“Great.” Shadow smiles. “Lets hope we don’t die.”

Vio lets himself relax, next to Shadow, who’s looking at him weird. His hands go to his collar on his shirt. “What the fuck is with this collar?” He asks.

He smiles politely but pulls away, because it’s just occurred to him that Shadow is basically a stranger, they were sitting way too close, and even though Vio’s gay as fuck, he’s still kind of getting over Green at this point and Shadow doesn’t need to deal with his still healing broken heart—even if they are gonna be on a four day road trip together. “We should get to bed,” he says. “It’s late and...we’ll need to get ready tomorrow.”

Shadow nods. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” He stretches—something pops and Shadow moans, Vio swallows. He looks back at him. “Where’s my room again?”

Vio quietly tries to show him his room, then remembers Shadow’s outfit is still dappled in blood. “I should have some nightwear in my room, I can go grab some.”

“Can you? I’d appreciate some sweatpants.” Shadow asks, and there’s a tone in his voice that makes Vio’s throat go dry. He just nods, gets to his room and comes back. By then, Shadow’s already taken off his shirt, and he’s facing the door, leaning back with his hands on the bed, as if he wants to show off his chest and torso to Vio. (He isn’t ripped or anything, Vio notes, ad he definitely isn’t toned, but he’s thin, lean, his skin looks smooth, soft.) Vio throws him the sweatpants—his mouth isn’t dry anymore, but he’s minutes away from drooling.

Shadow pulls off his jeans—his jacket’s hanging on a doorknob to the closet, Vio notes, trying to avoid making eye contact with Shadow while he pulls on some sweatpants and then lays back in bed. “Thanks.”

“Your welcome.” Vio swallows again. “I...I’ll see you in the morning.”

He doesn’t sleep well—he keeps wondering if he’s heard something approaching the house. A car? A...A zombie? Maybe his friends? He keeps checking his phone, looking for any new messages. He stays up, way past when the buzz he has wears off. He thinks of the stranger, sleeping in their guest room, right next door, and wonders what the hell is going to happen next.


	2. Due To A Lack Of Preparation For The Apocalypse, The Main Characters Prepare For A Road Trip

Vio’s pretty sure he slept come morning, knowing that there’s certain gaps in time, he must have nodded off, but he kept waking up and would check his phone, and then would stay awake just in case the vibration didn’t wake him, and then would eventually nod off, with it tightly clenched in his hand. At about five thirty, he’s done trying to sleep. It’s morning.

The house has never been quieter. He has lived almost every day in it, by himself, but not knowing what is outside and straining to hear anything—a car horn, a bird, anything—just reminds him how silent everything seems from inside. He sighs and goes to the kitchen, looking through the fridge. As the only person home usually, his parents tended to just give him money and tell him to order something, but Vio’s always used it to pay someone to shop for him, sending them with a list depending on what he wanted—eggs, bread, milk, then chips, french fries, frozen pizza, pasta noodles, tomato sauce, and some source of protein that varied. It had become some sort of a cycle, what he would buy—he kind of wishes there was more food in the house, especially since they were leaving, but he’d be able to find things to pack for them.

_Four days._ Four days with a stranger who he went to school with. Maybe Shadow wasn’t really a stranger, but Vio didn’t really know him—though his behavior the night before had _definitely_ made him want to get to know him.

Vio manages to do what he needs to in a weirdly calm manner—he turns on the TV, on the news and everyone has theories about what’s happening but no answers to any of the public’s questions. Society, unlike what movies and books and TV shows have insisted, has not yet collapsed. Some people are suggesting this may be a new way of life, which Vio finds bizarre. There’s a horrible feeling hanging in the air everywhere, Vio can’t imagine having to live with this dread everyday. The dread is what’s really freaking him out, not the thing causing the dread.

He showers and dresses and is done in fifteen minutes. He takes his meds and frowns at the amount of pills in his bottle. Not enough—Not enough for an indefinite amount of time, and he supposes, his medication isn’t _needed_ in the way that he has physical health issues, but it is needed in the way that he needs to take them to help suppress the urge to throw himself in front of a train. Well, he had struggled before to get appointments in—his therapist was always busy.

He goes through the kitchen, taking mental notes of good things to pack—he didn’t know he had beef jerky, or dried fruit. He has peanuts, trail mix, a few bags of pretzels and chips, a couple glass water bottles he can fill. Some crackers, two apples, a thing of Oreo’s (double stuff, he’s not a heathen). It’s not much, but he guesses it’ll do—he knows his second home is usually stocked full of food—because his parents like to run there when Vio asks if he can go somewhere, do something too many times and it stresses them out. They think he doesn’t know that the two of them sleep in different beds when they’re there, or that they eat excessive amounts of caviar and pizza, like they go hand in hand, there. Or that the majority of their _sudden_ business trips was really them going there. (Vio knows they won’t be there because they had actually prepared for a business trip and one of his mom’s coworkers had come by to pick up something for her ad had brought it up.)

Shadow’s voice startles him. “So, about how stupid did I act last night?”

Vio turns around and looks at him—Shadow’s still just dressed in sweatpants that are so big on him, he’s practically swimming in them. It’s not that Shadow’s that small compared to Vio, it’s really just that Vio’s mom had bought him a bunch of sweatpants that were bigger than she thought Vio’s size was (which had also been bigger than Vio’s actual size) so he now had three pairs of extra large sweatpants.

“Well...” He pauses. “We did shots, I talked about my family issues, and you proceeded to tell me how stupid my ex was because I was _such_ a catch.”

“Oh, geez.”

Vio smiles and continues. “And then I gave you clothes to change into—“

“—oh, no—“

“—and you proceeded to change in front of me, didn’t need a shirt, stared at me with like, half-lidded eyes and then we both went to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Shadow says. “That sounds stupid alright.”

Vio shrugs. “It was entertaining. Gave me something positive to think about. I didn’t sleep good.”

“I was out like a light,” Shadow admits. “I should not have drank as much as I did, but I slept it off. And I don’t have a hangover or anything.” He moves some hair out of his eyes.

“You don’t like, want to shower or anything, do you?” Vio asks—he hates the fact he thinks about Shadow in the shower—naked, wet...

“I would, but I don’t really have any clothes with me.”

“I can throw those in the washer, then, the ones you have—and when you get out of the shower you can just throw those sweatpants back on until your clothes are dry.” Vio thinks it’s a good suggestion—he expects Shadow to say that will work.

He does not expect Shadow to smirk and say, “You like watching me walk around topless?”

Vio flushes—a chorus of _I’m so gay, I’m so gay, I’m so gay!_ echoes in his head. He fights for a response but Shadow just laughs.

“Wouldn’t be much of a point if I’m going to fix up the car we have,” he responds. “I’d probably just get dirty again. I love Azalea and all, you know, but she’s...she’s a little old at this point. I mean, not really, but I need to work on her.”

“You _named_ your car?” Vio asks.

“Yeah, stupid, I know—but my father said if I was gonna waste my money on a car instead of spending it on dates with my girlfriend I don’t have and never will have, I better treat it like it’s my girlfriend and I wanted to spite him.” He moves some hair out of his face. “We’re still doing the whole—fleeing the city to escape the—“ He gestures to the window and struggles to find a word. “—whatever this is, right?” Shadow grins again—that glint in his eye returning like it has with every joke he’s made. “Or did I convince you that we shouldn’t and should marry and start a family here while we wait out the end of the world?”

“Ha, no,” Vio says. “Last night, you actually said if we were going to do it, we needed to commit to it. ...It was kind of sobering.”

Shadow nods. “Have we committed to it?”

“Have you?” Vio asks.

Shadow shrugs. “Why not? Sounds better than staying here? Higher population means a higher chance of getting this, right?”

Vio nods, but that wasn’t really an answer he was expecting. Though, he supposes he was expecting just a “no” or a “yes” but wasn’t sure which one specifically. “Alright then. Are you gonna need any help with _Azalea_ or anything or...?”

Shadow shakes his head. “I should be just fine. But if you hear screaming, maybe then you should ask?”

Vio thinks, for sure, Shadow’s joking. “You mean if the zombies get you?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of, ‘that means the car jack probably broke and I’m being crushed to death by my car’ but zombies too, I guess. Car jacks are not kind to my family—that’s how my mother died.”

Vio isn’t sure if that’s a joke. “Really?”

Shadow pauses. “That was probably a terrible thing to say, I’m gonna go awkwardly leave and talk to my car now.”

Vio nods—Shadow seems embarrassed and now, he isn’t sure if that actually was a joke. Shadow had brought up his parents, hadn’t he? He chose to stop thinking about it.

According to the news, the virus was not the apocalypse, but couldn’t stop people from calling the infected zombies. People were encouraged to stay away from people who were infected—who were infected by bites—and if someone was infected, they were encouraged to quarantine themselves in their home and not leave for any reason, as the infected were being found to be incredibly lethargic, aggressive, and prone to dangerous activity. However, zombies were being treated as people who were infected with something, and the public was advised to not go out of their way and harm them.

Vio only really half-listens to the news. He gathers that the outbreak is worse in cities—the streets can be easily filled with the infected and it’s difficult for everyday life to continue. In smaller cities and towns, however, life went on. Things were relatively normal. Vio only really checks his phone, looks at the news, checks his phone again and then just sits there, not sure what to do.

He goes out into the garage and checks on Shadow.

The jack is still working—Shadow’s beneath his car, but he must have heard the door open. “I thought you said your father was a mechanic,” he says.

“He is,” Vio says. “Part time.”

“Half of these tools are brand new,” Shadow said. “And not like, the ones that are rarely used, but like, the important ones anyone could use. A bunch of screwdrivers, hammers, and three car batters, jumper cables, oil, wrenches, and all sorts of car parts—brand new, never used and collecting dust.”

“He isn’t very good,” Vio says. “But he says it counts. For the most part, though—he’s an accountant.”

“Sounds like fun.” Shadow says, he comes out from beneath the car, pops the hood and looks like he’s about to change the oil or something. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Huh?” Vio’s slightly distracted by the weird claw marks on the floor.

“I don’t want to go on a four day road trip to a guy’s second home in the country where we could end up indefinitely if he’s a stranger. The more I know you, the less of a stranger you are, right?” He looks at Vio. “Tell me about yourself.”

Vio thinks for a minute. “I like to read.” It seems like it’s more value than anything else.

“What do you usually read?” Shadow asks.

Vio shrugs. “Whatever I can get my hands on. I usually read more adult books—just to piss my parents off.”

He can hear the smirk in Shadow’s voice. “You read a lot of porn?”

“Not _porn,”_ he says, flushing. “But like...books that are more graphic—you know, violence, drugs, alcohol, etc.”

“And sex?”

“Yeah.”

“How much porn do you read?” Shadow asks, that joking tone in his voice.

Vio rolls his voice. “What exactly are you doing to your car?” 

Shadow smirks. “Changing the subject, hm?” He doesn’t something to the car but Vio doesn’t know enough about cars to know what his action is. “I’m mostly making sure everything’s in perfect shape—we don’t want the car battery to die or anything.” He shook his head, moving some of his hair out of his face. His hands were all dirty. “I found about ten gallons of gasoline in the corner—I can fill Azalea up and then we can bring a few containers with us, but I still think we might have to make a pit stop eventually. The country isn’t that far away, but I don’t know what direction we’re going, so it depends, but once we’re out of the city, we’ll probably be able to find somewhere to stop—either to fill up the tank with what we have or. A gas station, though according to the news on my phone, some confidence stores, gas stations, small restaurants and the like are being closed, sometimes just abandoned, depending on where they are and how bad it is there.” Shadow turns to face him. “We should be fine. We’ll likely figure it out.”

Vio nods. “You make it sound like you thought this all out.”

Shadow grins. “Maybe my family’s made up of a bunch of psychos prepping for the apocalypse. You don’t know.” He turns back to the car. “But other than that, I plan on changing the tires and adding some sort of metal reinforcement to the bumper—I don’t think any zombies are just gonna kindly step out of the way and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to maneuver around them. But, we’re more than likely to get a few dents and scrapes.” Shadow sighs. “I feel like I don’t know enough about cars. I only really know the basics and what I’ve learned from playing Grand Theft Auto.”

“How many prostitutes did you run over?”

“...I think only one?” Shadow shrugs. “I was mostly joking, I played it once. I’m not even sure if Grand Theft Auto has much to do with cars? Anyway—I’m gonna try to do what I can. I found welding gear!”

Vio pauses. “You...aren’t gonna use it, are you?”

“Well, of course I am—I’ve had training, I swear.”

“...Okay, then.”

Shadow looks at him. “Have your friends called you or anything yet?”

Vio sighs. “No.” He swallows, and tries to not think of the multiple possible reasons they haven’t. “They haven’t.” 

He just nods in response.

Vio stays in the garage for a couple of hours with Shadow—it’s only when Shadow excitedly puts on the welding mask that Vio decides he should find something else to do. He leaves a fire extinguisher with Shadow just in case and decides to keep an ear out for screaming.

He feels like he doesn’t have much to do. He goes through his closet and throws a few outfits in a bag. (He knows that their second house has some spare clothes but he doesn’t know how well they’re fit, and he doesn’t know what to do with Shadow and his lack of clothes, He’ll have to lend some.) He slowly works up the courage to open the safe in his mother’s bedroom. He knows the pass code, _07-16-2017_ , not the date of her wedding, or her son’s birthday, but the date of one of her job promotions, which she’s had for ten years since. In the safe is a firearm—a black gun that feels wrong in his hand—and some ammo, along with some more expensive jewelry and some money inside. (Also, that one pair of earrings Red had given Vio that his mother said made him look like a girl and stole. He had seen it in a store, and he wasn’t one to like jewelry or such feminine jewelry and both Red and Zelda had noticed and tried to buy it from him. They had been disappointed to never see it on Vio because his mother was a judgemental bitch.) He grabs the earrings but hesitates with the gun—grabbing the wad of cash would feel a lot like stealing and he has some money in his room. He hasn’t really been able to buy much anything. Once, he had ordered something online (he thinks it was a book, but he can’t remember) and his mother had found it and scoffed and opened it for him, wondering why he would buy something online and had heavily implied she thought it was a sex toy. She had thrown it out and told him not to buy things online, but she didn’t let Vio out of the house too often, so he just a few hundred dollars saved up in his bedroom.

But thinking about that now has him angry. With how everything is, he wonders if his parents will come home—just to find their only son gone? How will they react? Will they know where he is? Will he ever come back? He doesn’t know, but he decides they wouldn’t miss a twenty missing from the roll of money. He eases it out and goes back to staring at the gun.

He is eighteen. He is an adult. But having a gun feels wrong. Does he really need to bring it with them? Sure, their lives would be in danger and they would need something to protect themselves with, but a gun felt like too much.

A voice sounds from the doorway of his parents’ bedroom. “What are you doing?”

He turns his head and looks—it’s just Shadow, though who else would it be right now? He sighs. “Nothing. Grabbing some things.”

He doesn’t feel too sad over the idea of possibly never returning home. He’s always wanted out—and while he’s slightly apprehensive to go anywhere, ever, he’s always held onto the idea of leaving, as soon as he can. He had a plan—graduate highschool, go to college, live in the dorms, never come home during break and then, when he graduates then, never come home period. Get a good job, find an apartment he could rent. 

Shadow steps closer. He stops by him. “Nice gun?” It sounds like a question.

“Dunno.” Vio rubs at his wrist. “Feels weird...I mean...do we really need to bring a gun?”

“I always hated it in the movies,” Shadow says. “When during the zombie apocalypse, they grab a gun—like, it’s so loud and you’re gonna run out of ammo eventually? What’s the point? Use a baseball bat or a knife, save the gun for later.” Shadow’s on his knees next to him now. “I feel like we should bring it. Because we’ll be in a car. Can’t swing a baseball bat in a car very well, I think, I’ve never tried. I dunno—it’s your gun, your call. But I _will_ say that if your face gets eaten, I’m gonna slap you. Because that will be very traumatizing, and I think when things die down, seeing a therapist is gonna be very expensive. They will be in high demand.”

Vio snorts. “Aren’t you worried that if my face gets eaten by a zombie, I’ll turn into one and try to eat you?”

Shadow leans forward until their noses are touching. “I don’t think I’d mind if you bit me. I mean, it’s basically a kiss, right?” He waggles his eyebrows—Vio blushes. Shadow pulls away. “Also, if your face is eaten, I don’t think you’d have a mouth. Can you bite without a mouth?”

“No?”

They sit in silence for a minute. “Well, I don’t have a baseball bat, so we should probably bring it.”

“Yeah,” Shadow says. “We’ll avoid using it.” Vio just hopes there won’t be any point in time when they’ll _have_ to use it.

Before the sun sets, Shadow has their whole car situation figured out, they’ve looked at a few maps and Vio has that GPS they’ll need—one of the old fashioned ones that isn’t on a phone, weird. Vio’s also gathered some food they can bring with them and placed them in the front of a top shelf in the fridge. They’re definitely gonna end up stopping somewhere, out of the city, but Shadow’s pretty confident they’ll figure it out. The tank is full, Shadow is hopeful it’ll be enough to get them out of the city before they’ll need to stop to fill the tank again, but they have about a dozen gallons total they can take with them, plus two spare tires in case something happens.

Shadow sighs. “I should go take a shower.”

“Right—you know where the bathroom is?” He asks. “I showed you it, right?”

Shadow nods. “Yep.” He grins and grabs the front of Vio’s shirt. “Maybe you should come with me. We can shower together. Conserve water.” One of his hands falls on his shoulder. “I’ll make it worth your while.” His tone is almost sing-song.

Honestly, his flirting is kind of nice. Distracting. Vio flushes—not sure if he’s serious. “I took one this morning,” he manages to get out.

“Maybe you should take another.” There’s a pause. Shadow laughs and lets go of him. “You’re _adorable_ when you’re blushing.”

“You’re adorable when you try to act all seductive,” Vio says, but his hearts beating a mile a minute.

Shadow tilts his head—he’s still grinning. “You think I’m being adorable?”

“Yeah—you come up to like, my shoulders.” Shadow laughs. “And you’re trying to grab them, like you’re trying to hoist yourself up to my height.”

Another laugh. “If I was in my high heels, you’d come up to _my_ shoulders.” He starts walking in the direction of the bathroom.

Vio doesn’t even question the fact that Shadow owns high heels—a part of him thinks they’d suit him. Probably black, maybe boots.

Vio sighs and checks his phone. Shadow was able to distract him for a couple hours, a couple hours without checking his phone—there’s a notification.

A missed call and a voicemail.

“Fuck.” He can’t _believe_ he missed a call, he doesn’t know how that happened, he had had his phone all day. He listens to the voicemail—left by Blue, Vio’s never been happier to hear his voice.

_Hey, Bookworm._ Blue always greets him like that—the fact that that persists even with how things are makes a bit of hope flicker in his chest, as if maybe one day, he’ll be back in the school hallways with Blue, Red, Green and Zelda, teasing each other and doing the stupid shit teenagers do with their friends. (Except, instead of doing stupid shit, it was usually talking about stupid shit because Vio only ever saw them at school, except for the three dances he went to, not including prom. Fighting tooth and claw had not been worth it for them.) _Um...So, Zelda kind of...dropped her phone, otherwise she would have called you. Green lost his phone at some point, and I just...haven’t gotten around to calling or texting. I’m sorry about that. I figured I would call you and tell you that we’re all okay, but..._ There’s a cough, not from Blue though. A groan. _I was hoping you’d be able to respond and assure Red that you’re okay. Um...I just feel like I’m talking to myself right now. I better not be, you better listen to this voicemail, Vio! ...Stay safe, okay? I’ll try and call you later, when I get the chance, okay? Pick up then. Don’t be dumb and don’t die._

Vio pulls the phone away from his ear and sighs. Maybe he should call back? He isn’t sure. He dials Blue’s number—it rings, he goes to voicemail. Vio lets him know he got his call, apologizes for not picking up and...

He hesitates. His voice cracks. His relationship has always been kind of strained with his friends—they only saw each other at school. They could never really hang out. Not seeing them makes him feel impossibly lonely, and makes him wonder if he can even call them friends. His therapist had encouraged him to try to hang out with them more, but his mother had never allowed it.

He chooses to tell the truth—he’s leaving the city and hoping he and Shadow (stops to mention who Shadow is, the stranger who picked him up) are hoping they can make a break for it, so they can not die. He tells Blue the address, where he’s going and suddenly feels really guilty for leaving. He’s leaving his friends behind. They could die. The threat is real. He could never see them again. He tells Blue to tell the others that, and promises he’ll call again and tells them to be safe. He hangs up.

He plugs in his phone by the wall—he threw a spare charger in a duffle bag along with some clothes. How astonished empty the duffle bag he gave Shadow was made him feel guilty, but when Vio suggested they stop by his house to pick some things up for him, Shadow just said it wasn’t worth it. It’d be more worth their time to just _leave._ They should be out of the city before tomorrow is over.

When he falls asleep, sitting on the couch, his hand inches away from his phone, he feels like shit.

“Did I take it too far?” Shadow asks.

Vio opens his eyes and looks at him—he’s dressed in the clothes he had worn not last night ecause it’s morning, but the day before, except they’re clean. He looks good. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm. “What?” His voice cracks—he wants to sleep some more, but he doesn’t.

“Did I take it too far, my flirting?” Shadow moves some hair out of his eyes. “I...Might have crossed a line, trying to get you to come shower with me.”

“Oh,” Vio says. He had barely remembered that all. “Oh, no. It’s fine. It was kind of flattering.” And tempting, but he’s not about to mention that. “It’s cool.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.” They stare awkwardly at each other for a minute. “Morning?”

Vio smiles and gets up, rubbing at his eyes. “We should...get ready, huh?”

“Ha, yeah.” Shadow rubs the back of his neck. Vio glances at his phone. Blue texted him a simple “can do” with no capital letters or punctuation marks and Vio can’t even remember entirely what he said on the phone. He slides his phone into his pocket, but it’s still attached to the charger, so the cord just kind of hangs out. He doesn’t notice.

“I know where my mom keeps the coolers, and we should have some ice in the freezer.” He’s also pretty sure it’s a good cooler—the kind that will actually keep your stuff cool, not one that just holds your ice and lets it melt so everything you pull out of it will be dripping lukewarm water. “There’s a freezer in the kitchen, not attached to the fridge, in there should be a bag of ice, can you grab it for me while I try to find the cooler?”

Shadow nods and walks to the kitchen—Vio goes to one of the closets his mom uses for storage and after three minutes of searching, finds a red cooler on wheels. It’s an easy task hauling it to the kitchen—the inside is clean once he wipes down some dust—and then Shadow just pours the bag in. Vio throws the stuff that needs to be refrigerated in there and the ones that don’t need to be refrigerated go in a backpack that Shadow’s just fine with carrying. They bring their stuff out to Shadow’s car— _Azalea,_ why did Shadow name his car Azalea?—and it’s stowed in the backseat.

Otherwise, there’s not much to prepare.

Vio climbs in the passenger seat, Shadow sits behind the wheel. All is silent for a minute. Vio has the remote that will open the garage door in his hand, but he’s suddenly reluctant to press it. He left a note on the coffee table in the living room telling whoever it was that he had gone to his parent’s second house—in case his friends somehow figured out where he lived when they had never been allowed over, or if his parents do come home. He keeps in mind this probably isn’t permanent—he’s certain people will figure it out, there will be a way to deal with the zombies.

Shadow’s staring at him. Vio tries to forget about the gun in his glovebox. “Are you ready?” He asks.

Vio takes a deep breath. “Yeah.” He clicks a button—it opens slowly and as they slowly move out, he clicks it again, closing the garage door just in case. A handful of zombies on the street turn their attention on the car—one of them doesn’t have legs. It’s a car, so they can’t catch up.

Vio wishes he had more medication for this four day road trip they were going on.


	3. Traumatized Birds and People Everywhere—Convience Stores, Bathrooms, Gas Stations, Cars, and More!

The first two days have no right to go as well as they do. Getting out of the city had been a bit of a challenge—cars are abandoned everywhere, zombies wander the streets and sometimes, the zombies looks a little more like a person (maybe in the process of turning?) and instead of wandering into the street and trying to follow them in the car, they stand by the side of the road, watching, as if they’re waiting. Other than the weird amount of abandoned buses—many of which are splattered with blood which strikes Vio as odd and sad—and the occasional horde that consists of three, four, the largest five, they do just fine. They are out of the city in six hours and manage to take a stop to fill up the tank with no one in sight and then keep going. They take turns driving. Shadow has a couple CDs and the two have similar taste in music, or at least two song artists they both like and they get along fine.

After two days, though, they realize they are seriously going to need to stop for gas.

There is a gas station and a convenience store (in the middle of nowhere, it seems like) at the side of the road. It seems abandoned. Slowly, Vio—who is behind the wheel now—pulls into the small parking lot of the store. Shadow looks around. “I don’t see anyone.”

“I can look around.” Shadow is obviously tired—it’s showing. Vio isn’t that tired. He can do it.

Shadow doesn’t look like he’s about to argue. He sighs. “Be careful. I’m gonna wait here.” He opens the glovebox. “Do you want to bring the gun with?”

“No,” he says. “It’s fine. I’ve a pocket knife if I really need it.” He opens the car door and looks around. No zombies anywhere. “I’m gonna look inside.” It sounds risky, maybe even stupid to just go in there with only a pocket knife, when he doesn’t know what’s inside, but he decides he’s going to do it anyway.

He walks up the the glass doors in front and peers through the glass—it looks empty, but it looks clean. Vio grabs onto the handle and tries to pull it open—the doors stay still. He tries again—it’s locked. He takes a step back.

One of the car doors open. “Is it locked?” Shadow asks, halfway out. One of the things Vio is slowly coming to learn is that Shadow is eager to help—with anything. Constantly. He seems to like helping Vio with anything.

“Definitely. You stay in the car, I’m gonna go see if there’s a back entrance or a window I can go in through.”

Shadow frowns. “Are you sure?” He sounds weirdly concerned. “If you want, I can come with you.”

“No, it’s fine,” he insists. “Let me see if I can get in here.”

“We don’t have to get in there,” Shadow says.

“We’re running low on food and this is the only gas station we’ve seen in hours.” Something moves inside. “I think someone’s in there.”

“I should go with you,” Shadow says. He seems insistent.

Vio shakes his head. “Really, it’s fine. I can take care of it. Why don’t you fill up the gas tank while I go look?”

“Are you sure?” He asks again.

“Yes,” Vio says. “If I’m not out in like, fifteen minutes, then you can start to worry.”

Shadow sighs. “Just be careful.”

The wall is rough on his hand as he rounds a corner and goes behind the building, his fingers brushing against the bricks. He finds an entrance clearly meant for employees and tries to open it—it’s locked too, but he expected that. He finds a window and looks through the glass again—he doesn’t see movement this time. He supposes it’d be easy enough to break the window, but he isn’t about to just punch the glass. That’d be stupid.

He looks around and finds a small lead pipe—he has no idea why that’s there, but it’s good. He picks it up and looks at the window, smashing it in until there isn’t any glass on the pane and then waits—this feels illegal. He sticks his head in and looks around, but whatever room it leads to is dark. For the most part, he just sees a few, small lockers and a door and a bench—he climbs in with a bit of difficulty, almost trips over a shard of glass and walks to that door. Across the room he entered, he sees the glass doors he had tried to go through and—by the door he’s at now—is a cork board and pinned to that cork board is a ring of keys.

After a bit of fumbling with them, he finds the one that unlocks the doors and he manages to open it—something dings. Shadow—by the car—looks at him and beams before finishing filling the tank and running forward.

“Whoever was here must have locked it up before leaving,” he says. “Maybe they heard the news and ran home?”

“Their home must have been hours away, though,” Shadow points out. “If this gas station wasn’t here, we would have ran out of gas in like, thirty minutes.” They would have been stranded. There is basically nothing here—just miles and miles of half dead greenery that isn’t even green. Bushes, tumbleweeds, shrubs, thicket. 

“Yeah,” Vio says. He actively chooses to believe that whoever locked up the store and left got home safely—even if home was hours away and it’s more than likely they got hurt. He wonders if their home was in the city they left, because other than that, there’s just one smaller city and then a town that’s more like a village, in between their current destination and the smaller city they passed through.

The two of them throw some food in a duffle bag—granola bars, jerky, sweets that probably have little to no actual nutritional value, and a lot of water. Vio leaves a twenty on the counter, so it feels a little less like stealing, even though it’s the twenty he stole from the safe, ironically. He looks around. Something in the corner moves and Vio turns to look at it.

Shadow follows his eyes. “What is it?”

“I saw something.” They both go quiet—something falls off a shelf and they both start, but otherwise, the store is silent.

Shadow frowns. “It’s small. I think it’s by the door.”

There’s a flicker of movement, on top of the doorframe. Slowly, the two of them move towards it—the movement’s stopped by the time they actually reach it. A bird flutters and lands by Shadow’s feet—the way he starts is actually kind of cute, Vio thinks. 

“It’s a bird,” Vio says.

“I _noticed.”_ Shadow’s stepped closer to Vio. “What’s a bird doing here?”

Vio shrugs. The bird is small. “I’m sure it’s—“ He notices another door, ajar. “There’s another door.”

“There is.” The bird twitters, pecks at something on the floor. “I thought that was the one you came in through.”

“No.” Vio steps forward. Something feels wrong. He walked over to the door. Shadow was on his heels.

The door didn’t creak open, but Vio somehow expected it would, like in every horror movie and video game and comic book. Doors creaked in horror and this sure felt rather horrifying. He gropes the wall for the light switch—his hand comes back wet with blood while the lights turn on.

A fluorescent light bulb illuminates the room. Vio presses his hand to his mouth to cover his gasp, completely forgetting his palm has blood on it. He gags, Shadow wears a grimace.

Scattered on the floor, at least a dozen more birds lay. Except, they’re disfigured, dead, dripping blood. Multiple are ripped open. A few bones lie. A couple are missing a head. Blood is everywhere. Vio tries to count them—eighteen mutilated birds, two heads that are separated from bodies he can’t find, three legs not attached to bodies, some feathers matted with blood, and a handful of bones. It is disgusting.

“Did someone _eat_ the birds?” Shadow asks. It’s so gross.

“I...I think so.” The room is otherwise empty. The bird chirps.

“This bird must be traumatized.” Shadow pets their head with a single finger. “Poor birb.”

Vio looks at him—even with this disturbing scene around them, he has to keep himself from smiling. “Did you just call it a ‘birb?’”

“I get attached real quick,” Shadow admits. “Did...someone just like sit in here and eat birds? _Living_ birds?”

Vio looks at the blood on his hand. “A zombie? But...whoever did this must have been the one to lock up everything.”

“The girls I was babysitting...Well, the first one didn’t turn immediately. I swear, for a moment, she was conscious, she was aware. Maybe that happened here?”

Vio realizes that they probably didn’t get home—and it was probably for the best. The news showed that they were still trying to find some cure, but weren’t really getting anywhere, and as the days went on, the infected got more aggressive, less conscious of their actions, rotting from the inside out. “At least we know the birds didn’t get it,” he says.

“Goddesses,” Shadow says, closer to his side now. “ _Zombie birds._ Now _that_ would be terrifying, I could make a movie on that.”

“Zombie birds,” Vio agrees. Shadow grabs his hand, but he’s so busy finishing his thought he doesn’t notice. “Swooping down from the heavens, bringing destruction and fear with every fall of their wings.” He finally realizes he’s holding hands with Shadow. He turns to look at him. 

They lock eyes—for a long moment, they’re just staring. Vio thinks his heart skips a beat and wonders if it’s ever done that before—he doesn’t think so. Least, not in this way.

Shadow lets go, clears his throat and breaks eye contact. “We should leave.”

“Yeah.” Vio’s still looking at him. “Let’s leave.”

He shuts off the light and walks out. The bird follows them, chirping. Shadow holds the door open for Vio as he walks out—when he’s outside, Shadow’s still holding the door open. Vio waits next to him.

The bird walks out and chirps on the ground, out of the building. “Come on,” Vio says and Shadow lets go of the door and walks beside him. The bird chirps and flies away after a minute.

“I can drive,” Shadow offers, but he’s already on the passenger side.

“It’s cool,” Vio says. “I’ll drive for awhile longer. You look exhausted.” Exhaustion. That was why Shadow grabbed his hand.

Shadow smiles. “I thought I looked adorable?” He climbs into the passenger seat.

“You do,” Vio says, and then wonders if maybe he’s exhausted too.

Shadow’s fast asleep in his seat—Vio’s starting to feel tired too, but he can let Shadow sleep a bit longer. He breathes through his nose—he’d look at his phone if he wasn’t driving. Even if there’s no one else on the road, he won’t text and drive.

Shadow shifts but stays asleep.

_Goddesses, I need a shower._ Vio runs a hand through his hair. It’s rough and greasy and gross, he needs to wash it. He also needs to use the bathroom. He also needs to find a bed he can lie in for a few weeks. A square meal that doesn’t consist of dried fruit and a granola bar would also be good.

There’s a rest stop nearby—Vio pulls in and rubs at his eyes before grabbing Shadow’s shoulder gently. “Shadow?”

He groans.

“Shadow, I pulled over. At a rest stop.”

He straightens out, rubs at his eyes. “Cool.” He sighs rubs at his eyes again. “Why is it so bright out?”

Vio gets out of the car and looks around. No one in sight. No zombies, no people.

Shadow gets out too. “Everywhere we stop, everything looks abandoned.” He’s squinting through the sunlight—it’s overcast, there is basically no sunlight but he isn’t about to tell Shadow that. He sighs. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

Vio realizes now would be a perfect time to check his phone—he looks at the group chat he has, between himself, Red, Green, Blue and Zelda.

He texts them, but he keeps it short. Every time he checks, he hasn’t been getting any new messages. He realizes he’s gonna run out of minutes soon. What then? He finds himself staring at the screen for a few minutes. He pushes it into his pockets and sighs.

The men’s bathroom door creaks and Shadow rushes out—the entire right side of his body is covered in blood. Immediately, Vio jolts and rushes forward, thinking he’s injured. “What happened?”

“There...” Shadow’s leg shakes and he almost pitches forward, so Vio catches him. “There’s...There’s a...” Vio grabs the gun from the glovebox and goes into the bathroom. Shadow’s trailing behind him.

He tries to get his hands to stop shaking, but he’s never held a gun before.

Even though it’s the men’s bathroom, there’s a woman. Her head’s in the sink, a scarlet river of blood snaking down the porcelain and onto the floor into a puddle. She is slumped over—she’s really tall—on her knees, her arms limp at her sides. Her eyes are glassy, one of them is bleeding, and her throat is slashed. Pressed up against the wall—opposite of the sinks—is another woman, though Vio supposes “girl” would be more accurate, she looks like a teenager. Her eyes are closed, her arm outstretched, her other arm around her stomach but it’s been torn open. The floor is wet with her blood, littered in pieces of organs. There’s a footprint in the large puddle of blood that Vio’s pretty sure is from Shadow’s boot.

“I fell,” Shadow says. “But that’s not the thing.”

He goes silent—in the farthest stall, there’s a loud groan. Something hits the stall door. Reluctantly, Vio crouches down and he can see tennis shoes shuffling around. Blood drips from something. Another groan. “Yep,” he says. “That’s a zombie.” The zombie stupidly hits the stall door again. Vio looks back at Shadow—he doesn’t really want to shoot the zombie. Could be a waste of a bullet and they aren’t in danger right now.

Shadow is still covered in blood.

“Come on.” Vio grabs his hand, trying to ignore that the blood makes it slippery and leads him out. He stops at the car, pulls out the first aid he thought to bring and tugs him towards the unisex bathroom.

There is no zombie in there, no corpses, no blood to slip in. Vio picks Shadow up and places him on the counter by the sink. He grabs a fistful of paper towels and starts running the faucet. It takes a minute to start, being the one that doesn’t require touch and the water’s lukewarm when it seeps through the brown paper towels and reaches his skin. He rubs his hands clean, and any it of exposed skin that has blood on it. Both of his palms, one of his forearms and the side of his head, his neck. “So _gross,”_ Shadow exhales.

“Yep,” Vio responds. “You don’t have any bruises or anything, do you?”

Shadow shakes his head slowly. “No...”

“Good...” There’s still blood on his clothes, in his hair. He picks out a piece of intestine from his hair, flicks it into the sink, tries to swallow the disgust he feels.

“I...I almost...fainted, I think.” The water’s stopped running. A drop falls, landing in the sink. “I saw her, tried to step back, slipped...landed _on top of her_...and instantly thought of the girl I was supposed to be watching.” Shadow trembled once, shook his head, grabbed his arm and his fingers had blood on them when he let go. Vio quickly wiped it clean and tossed the paper towel into the trash can. “...She just dropped. I...keep replaying it in my head. ...She was an alright kid too.”

“It’s not your fault,” Vio says. He tries to keep his voice soft. “A girl at prom apparently dropped too. Got up as a zombie. Bit Lana. I don’t think it was really showing. I think there wasn’t anyway to know.”

Shadow sighs—they’re staring into each other’s eyes a lot. “This feels like a time where I should kiss you.” There’s a pause, Vio’s slightly taken back so he can’t come up with a response. “Like, if there was ever a time where I should kiss you, this is it.”

“What makes you say that?” Vio asks.

“I don’t know,” Shadow says. “I’m at your height. We’re inches away from each other. How the hell are you so tall?”

Vio shrugs, smiles gently. “Maybe you’re just short.”

“I am,” Shadow says. “But I like my height.”

“Yeah?” His heart was doing that skipping a beat thing again.

“Yeah. Let’s me reach _things_ easier.”

Now his heart was just beating quickly. “ _Things?”_

“Yeah.” Shadow grins—his canines look more pointed than normal. “ _Your_ thing, for one.”

“Oh.” Vio can feel his face heat up. “You mean...?”

Shadow situates himself so he can closer. “I wonder how your ‘thing’ looks.” He’s pretty sure Shadow just spread his legs. “Are you big?” He tilts his head, maintains eye contact. “A grower, maybe?”

“Um...” Vio doesn’t know how to answer. There’s a small, red bit on his neck. He flicks that into the sink.

Shadow fists the front of his shirt and pulls him closer—Vio wants to lean forward. He really does. “Kiss me.” Vio doesn’t know if he wants to do that, though he still knows he does. “Kiss me, Vio.” His lips are inches away—he could make it quick. His stomach is in knots. But does he _really_ want to kiss Shadow, at the start of a zombie apocalypse, in a public bathroom, when the other still has blood and pieces of organs on his clothes?

“It’s...” Vio tries to find the words. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he tells him, and he’s being honest. He grabs Shadow’s fist and slowly pries his shirt from his fingers. It’s easy because Shadow almost immediately lets go when he realizes he’s being rejected. “Really. I...I _do_ want to. It’s just...Now’s a bad time, I mean...I’ve only known you for a couple of days, I mean... _really_ known you, and...there’s like, a zombie in another room and-and...I mean, I might never see my friends again, and...We don’t want to actually do this, right now, at least, I mean...Maybe s-some other time?” He can’t remember the last time he’s stuttered. He doesn’t know why he’s stuttering now.

“Oh.” That’s all Shadow has to say. “Okay.”

Now it’s just awkward. “I’ll...Um...Just wait outside, since the bathroom has only one stall. Um...” Shadow’s expression is blank—that’s scaring him. He’s not too used to flirting, and definitely not used to liking the person who is flirting—he thought he was still getting over Green? 

He rushes out.

He looks around again—he see’s a glint of white in the corner of his eye and finds himself walking towards it.

It’s a car. Three of it’s doors are open, the light is on. Vio waits a minute, looks around. Maybe it belonged to the people in the bathroom? He gets closer, trying to not think about Shadow—with his half-lidded, dark eyes, and his oily purple hair that didn’t make him look any less...less...He looks at one of the open doors, the one behind the driver’s seat. A notebook sits on the floor.

Vio frowns and picks it up, flipping to the first page.

_Doctor Jones told me that she thought it’d be a good idea to start writing in a diary—says it’s good for one’s health, a good outlet. I don’t feel like there’s much to write about though. My parents are fighting again, but what else is new? We’re going on a trip next week, to go look at some monument in my dad’s hometown, I just hope they make up before that. My wrist is already hurting, is that normal?_

_A diary,_ Vio thinks. _I picked up some girl’s diary._ He flips a couple pages forward—the date shows the date of Vio’s prom.

_We’re going home now. It was as boring as I expected it to be. My dad keeps cursing because people are just walking down the street._

The next page simply reads, _Dad got bit._

_Dad’s pointing a gun at mom’s head. He won’t put it down. I think we’re gonna die. I don’t think there’s a point in writing this anymore. We’re pulling over._

Someone taps Vio’s shoulder, he jerks his head to see, but it’s just Shadow. “What’d you find?”

“Some kid’s diary. The one in the bathroom, I think.” Vio puts it back. This poor girl—had her father killed her? Tore her open like that and then locked himself in a bathroom stall? The poor girl, the poor family, did Vio feel bad at all for the father who was bitten, that must have been her father? Had he killed them on purpose? Lost control? Vio didn’t want these answers. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Hurry back,” Shadow says.

When he’s back, Shadow’s in the driver’s seat. “I’m driving,” he says and its not a question. There is no sort of fatigue in his eyes. He is awake, completely, and his eyes look haunted, just not tired.

Vio wishes he could say the same. He climbs into the driver’s seat. Shadow does not look at him when he starts the car. They drive away from the rest stop in total silence.


	4. Bruises and Bitemarks (From A Zombie, Not the Song, Sorry)

The road stretches on for miles and miles, straight. No one is in sight. He hasn’t seen a car in a long time. Beside him, Vio is fast asleep—Shadow keeps glancing at him.

He’s hot. He looks gorgeous—absolutely stunning. Shadow’s hands itch to bury themselves in his hair, to intertwine their fingers. He wants to kiss him.

He looks forward, but nothing about their surroundings have changed, even though they keep moving forward. He looks over again at Vio—and slowly reaches over. He traces Vio’s lips with one of his fingers. Vio doesn’t move—there’s a slight difference in his breathing.

Shadow grins. They had been so close to kissing in the bathroom. They had been so close...He had seen Vio’s eyes widen, felt the warmth of his skin, of his breath—he hadn’t wanted to close that gap, scared he had been too forward, that he was freaking Vio out. Vio doesn’t know him, really—is it weird Shadow knows so much about him? That doesn’t make him look like a stalker, does it?”

The car’s gonna run out of gas soon.

Shadow sighs and pulls over—the car comes to a stop. He rubs at his eyes and steps out, glancing around. No zombies in sight. No people or cars. He shuts off the car and goes to the backseat, grabbing one of the red jerrycans. He rubs at the back of his neck while he fills up the tank.

What if Vio _had_ kissed him? Would he have realized Shadow was all talk? Would they have made out? Would they have had killer, super gay sex in that bathroom?

Had Vio been okay with his aggressive flirting? At what point would it become harassment and Vio would get annoyed? He wishes he knew.

He hurries back to his seat and buckles up. The car starts moving again. Goddesses, he cannot wait to be in a house again instead of a car. He also wants to change his clothes—he wonders how Vio’s would feel on him. Wearing his clothes...Like they’re a couple. Stealing his jacket, sleeping in his t-shirts...

Goddesses, he is so gay.

A few more minutes pass—they’re just moving forward. But there’s something far away, on the road. Shadow frowns. It’s coming towards them, moving forward.

It’s a car.

By all means, a car simply riding down the other lane at about sixty miles per hour isn’t miraculous, but this is the first car with people in it he’s seen in a long time. The man in the front seat waves politely at him and smiles. Shadow—not wanting to be rude but having no idea how to interact with people—waves back.

The GPS chirps out, “Bear right in ten miles.”

Shadow grins and spares a glance at the GPS—they’re only about ninety miles away. Vio’s still asleep beside him.

Shadow slams on the gas—the car speeds up. Vio barely moves. They’ll get there soon.

The car’s stopped when Vio wakes up—he has no idea how long he’s been out. Nothing woke him up this time, he’s just up. He feels relatively well-rested. As well-rested as you can get in a car. His legs are asleep, his arm kind of hurts and he has a bit of a headache, but that’s about it. 

They’re at a gas station. Vio rubs at his eyes—Shadow’s outside of the car, at the pump, talking to a _really_ friendly, bubbly, red headed woman. Shadow looks like he kind of wants to escape—the woman picks up on that, says something that makes Shadow laugh, nods and walks away. Shadow gets back in the car. “Morning,” he says. “Did you sleep well?”

“As good as I can in a car,” Vio said, truthfully. “How long was I out?”

“About eight hours. I know you said to wake you up in three, but I thought you needed it.” He points to the GPS. “We’re only twenty minutes away.”

Vio straightens. “I’ll drive.” The sun is going down—they’ll probably reach it before it’s night.

“You don’t have to.” Shadow pulls a styrofoam cup out of the cup holder and puts it in Vio’s hands—Vio hadn’t noticed it before. “Green tea—a woman was selling tea and coffee inside.” He jerked his thumb to the store a bit farther away from the pumps. “I told her we came from the city, she said it was a good thing we got out of there and was just in general, glad to see other people, so I got it for free.”

It’s still warm. “Thanks.”

Shadow grins. He puts the keys in the ignition. They’re driving away in seconds.

The car is almost totally silent, except for the GPS. Shadow doesn’t make a single wrong turn. They reach it in under twenty minutes.

Vio’s never been happier to step out of a car—he stretches his legs and runs a hand through his hair. He cannot wait to shower—that’s gonna be great. Sleeping in a bed will also be great.

Shadow goes to the backseat and grabs the duffle bags they both have, handing one to Vio. “Do you have the key to the front door?” Shadow asks.

“Sort of.” Vio walks onto the porch—there’s a table and chairs and a porch swing. On the table, there’s an empty vase. He lean over the table and sticks his hand in. His fingers wrap around the key and he manages to pull it out before returning to the door and inserting it into the lock.

“Thank the goddesses, I thought you were gonna look under the welcome mat,” Shadow says, and Vio snorts and holes the door open for him.

He hasn’t been to his vacation home in a long time—it’s big, just as modern as their first home, but more homey. There’s rugs on the hardwood floors, dark stained coffee tables instead of glass, and the walls have pictures—not pictures of Vio and his family, but paintings, photos of beaches ad forests, as if they had gone on vacation and took photos, but Vio’s only ever gone to either of these two houses. For the most part, his parents did the traveling.

It’s dark, Vio notes. Shadow places the dufflebags on the living room floor. “It wasn’t this cold outside,” he says.

“No, it wasn’t,” Vio agrees. The air is strangely cold. “The power isn’t gonna work, i need to go out back and turn on the generator.”

“The generator?”

“Yeah, the power generator,” Vio says. “One of the good ones too, it’s like...solar powered, I guess, but it can also use gasoline.”

“Good,” Shadow says. “We have gasoline.”

“Yeah.” He sighs—they’re almost done here. Then he can rest and figure out what to do from here. “I’m gonna go into the backyard and get the generator working—do you think you can unload everything from the car by yourself or are you gonna need help with that?”

“I can handle it,” Shadow says.

“Good...Now I just need to find the door to the back.” He turns and treks down a hallway—he finds one large closet, two bathrooms, two bedrooms and then the door to the back, at the very end of the hallway. “Of course it’s the last one I try,” he mutters. He hasn’t been here in forever. He doesn’t know where he’s going.

The grass in the backyard is tall—there’s a pool but it’s completely empty except for a grocery bag and tons of dirt. Vio can’t even see the ground—the grass goes up to his hips, yellow-green and rough against his skin. He’s pretty sure the generator is by the shed in the corner of the rectangular yard—not just because he faintly remembers it, but also, he thinks that’s a good spot for a generator.

He realizes he has no idea how to work this. He looks it over. He flips a switch and then has to open a thing—the generator doesn’t have the boxy thing it’s supposed to. Faintly, he remembers his father working on it and telling him what to do when he was seven to get it to work—he had referred to it as a boxy thing as if that was it’s name and then did everything totally wrong, so his mother had to take over and they had takeout for dinner. He tries to remember what his mother did—the boxy thing, he knew, was kind of like a battery, but the generator didn’t need a battery, so it couldn’t have been. “There’s probably one in the shed,” he mutters.

The shed door opens easily, but creaks like hell. He looks at the assortment of rusted objects and tries to find a cube shaped object that is hopefully not rusted. He knocks over a bucket that’s holding a shovel, a hoe, a rake, and a wooden baseball bat and then, when trying to pick it up, manages to kick the bucket away from him somehow—he finds a boxy thing.

It’s surprisingly light in his hand. He takes it to the generator and puts it in it’s place—now, he thinks there’s a switch or something he’s supposed to hit—

There’s a groan from behind him. He turns around quickly.

A corpse shambles towards him—their skin was probably dark in life, but now it’s a sort of grey shade, and it’s mottled with rot. Pieces of it are falling off, their hair is falling out and it’s teeth are rotting. It raises it’s head and looks at him—it stops moving. Time stands still.

Vio isn’t stupid—he’s not about to stand still, even if time does. He tries to take a step—in which direction, he isn’t sure because whatever direction it was, there was a baseball bat in his way. It rolls, Vio eats grass when he falls down but he tries to get back up and somehow, he’s by the shed now. The zombie moves to grab him, Vio moves backwards—and he falls into the shed, tripping over the threshold of the door.

The zombie’s limbs are shaking—Vio tries to get away again, to pull himself up, but his hands grab onto another bucket holding various tools and it falls over—the handle of yet another shovel hits his forehead and for a minute he’s stunned.

He pushes the zombie away—he can hear something in it’s lungs rattling. Vio realizes he’s being stupid—he should be screaming right now. “Shadow! Help!” He isn’t sure if Shadow can hear him. He tries again to push the zombie away, but one of it’s hands hold down one of his arms. Vio kicks it hard in the leg but that just brings it on top of him.

Pain flares in his shoulder—he screams for Shadow again and kicks harder. His hands grasp something in the shed—a fractured piece of a brick and he slams it into the zombie’s skull. The zombie makes a noise, Vio does it again, trying to get as much distance as possible between him and this zombie because—something’s wrong with his shoulder.

All of a sudden, Shadow is behind the zombie. He grabs it by the back of it’s shirt and pulls it off of Vio. Before Vio can even process it’s off of him, Shadow has a baseball bat in his hands and there is now ay the zombie can move away fast enough to escape.

Vio looks away—he hears bones snap, hears another groan, feels blood splatter. He looks back—Shadow and that baseball bat are covered in rotting blood. The zombie isn’t moving—bones stick out of everywhere.

Everything is silent. Shadow helps him to his feet—his legs are shaking. Slowly, blood is pooling in the grass, staining it red. He’s gonna pass out. He moves to the generator, flips a switch—and it starts to hum. It’s on. He turns back to Shadow—his voice is weak. “Power should be working now.”

“Are you okay?” Shadow asks.

Something is wrong with his shoulder. “I...I think I got bit.”

The first thing Shadow does when they get inside is, Vio would say, panic. He pushes Vio onto the couch, pulls off his top and climbs into his lap, looking at his shoulder. “I mean, it might not be a bite,” he says. “It could be anything.”

“It’s a bite,” Vio says. He’s just getting more and more certain that it is a bite. “What else would it be?”

“A cut,” he says. Shadow’s wringing his hands and he keeps grabbing onto his shoulder, avoiding the wound he refuses to call a bite. “A bruise. A scrape. What...” He picks something out of it—it sends a shock of pain to Vio, but he bites his tongue to avoid saying anything.

“Is that a tooth?” Vio asks.

“Maybe it’s a pebble or something,” Shadow says. “I mean—you’ve seen white pebbles before, haven’t you?” It’s not really white—it’s yellow and half rotted.

“Shadow...” He wishes he hadn’t let his guard down—it was like, for a minute there, he had been too wrapped up in his own thoughts and forgot zombies were a thing now. “He bit me.”

“No,” Shadow says. He shakes his head. “No,” he repeats. “...I’m gonna find the first aid, it’s in one of the bags, and I’ll clean your...” He looks at Vio, at the ugly, bright red wound on his shoulder, complete with tooth marks. “...and we’ll bandage it and absolutely nothing will happen.”

“Shadow,” Vio says again. “You shouldn’t waste it on me. What if you end up needing it later?”

“It’s not a waste,” Shadow says—his tone isn’t the worrying one his voice held a moment ago. He sounds serious. “We’re gonna patch you up, okay?” He tears through one of the bags, but finds no first aid—just jerky and granola bars. He throws a box of raisins to the side and unzips another bag. He finds the first aid in it almost immediately and then climbs right back on Vio’s lap. He’s soaking a cotton ball with the small brown bottle in it and pressing it to Vio’s bite.

“I’m just glad you showed up,” Vio says. “I was worried for a minute, you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, but you got bit.”

“But I didn’t get eaten,” Vio reminds him. “That’d be way worse.”

“...Did you shout for me?” Shadow asks. He dabs a bit harder. “Before you started screaming, did you call for help?”

“Yeah, just once, though. I was distracted.” Shadow looks distracted right now. He places a band-aid gently on it—Vio doubts it’s gonna do anything. “For some reason, I didn’t think to call you before that—then he bit me and it was all I could think about.”

“...I’m sorry. I didn’t hear.” Shadow closes the first aid kit. “I really didn’t.”

“It’s not your fault,” Vio says.

Shadow’s silent.

Vio goes silent too. He gently grabs his hand. After a moment, Shadow squeezes it.

“So, what happens now?” Shadow asks. Vio doesn’t know, so he doesn’t immediately answer. So, Shadow keeps going. “What happens if you turn into...If you turn into a zombie?”

“You can stay here,” Vio says. “As long as you need to. Forever. Until the whole zombie thing goes away. You do what you need to to survive and...Get rid of me.”

“No.” Shadow rubs at his arm. “It’s bad enough I had to kill that zombie in the backyard, after seeing a metric fuck ton of corpses, but I’m not about to kill you. Even if you do turn.”

“Well, if you have any ideas,” Vio says.

“I do,” Shadow says. “I’ll tie you to a bed, so you don’t get tired and don’t hurt anyone. I’ll lock the door. I’ll wait until they find a cure for this and then I’ll give you it, even if I have to wrestle you to the ground to get you to take it.”

Vio can’t help it—he laughs. Shadow squeezes his hand until his peals of laughter turns into giggling turns into a grin. “If you turn into a zombie,” Shadow says. “I’ll slap you.”

“Good. Don’t let anyone eat you.”

Shadow leans forward, their noses touch. “Anyone?”

Vio’s heart skips a beat—he can feel Shadow’s breath. “Anyone.”

“Even you?” His fingers trace a circle on his cheek.

“Especially me.” His heart is pounding.

Shadow leans forward—when their lips meet, he feels Shadow squeeze his hand just a bit tighter. Shadow’s lips are slightly chapped, which makes sense, because in the car, he had been doing nothing but licking them constantly. Vio pulls away quickly. “We should explore the house. I don’t remember where anything is.” He stands up. North of the living room is the dining room which leads to the kitchen. To the east is a long hallway, and the same is on the other side. And south is the front door. He remembers it was large when he was last here—had it been large in the way that he was much smaller, or was it a large house? It looked large from the outside, when Vio had been outside.

Shadow grabs his hand when they walk through one of the hallways, opening each door they come across, a handful of bedrooms collecting dust, bathrooms, some closets. They went to the other hallway and found almost the exact same thing—except two of the bedrooms looked like they had been used at some point in their existence, versus the other ones.

The first one they reach is obviously the one Vio knew his parents use (or used) when they came to their vacation home, and despite what Vio had initially thought, his parents did not sleep in separate rooms, but separate queen sized beds on either side of the room. Vio can see Shadow frown, but in general, he knew about this room. He moves onto the door next to that room’s door.

It’s a bedroom, much like all the others, but the covers aren’t a simple white and black color scheme like the other bedrooms—they’re red and black. There’s a red, heart shaped rug on the floor and the floors are hardwood, the bed is king sized, it’s covered in black pillows, the duvet a bright scarlet.

Vio frowns—this is not what he had expected.

Shadow looks at a vase on a dresser—it holds a bouquet of roses that noticeably have no petals and are dead. The bottom of the vase holds a bunch of dried, black petals. “Any chance your parents just had a designated room to fuck, or...?”

Vio shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure they only slept together when they had me—they’re only together because of me.” He goes to the dresser too, opens a drawer. There’s condoms and lube—and then a vibrater he is so confident doesn’t belong to his mother. His confusion—and slight spike of anger he isn’t used to—keeps back his disgust from finding these things, when they could only have been used by one of his parents.

Shadow goes to the closet, opens it, pulls out a hanger. “Any chance your mother is short and skinny?” He asks, showing Vio. A v-neck, long sleeved, black shirt rests on the hanger—it’s about Shadow’s size. Vio’s mother is not Shadow’s size. He got his height from his mother.

“No,” he says. “My dad isn’t either.”

Shadow pulls out another hanger—this one has a knife-pleated skirt that would likely fall right above the knee. “Oh, goddesses.” He pulls out a third one—it’s a fire engine red dress, but the neckline is plunging, a small strap of closet has over the chest, skin tight and short, exposing the back and hips. It is barely clothes. “I’m like, ninety percent I own a dress just like this, but in black.” 

“You’re joking,” Vio says.

“I’m not,” Shadow says. He puts it back. “I think this is the same size too. I look hot in it, by the way.” He puts it back in the closet. “What the hell, though?”

Vio doesn’t know where to start, so he doesn’t start. He just sighs and walks right back out, into the hallway, into the living room. Shadow follows him.

“I...” He rubs at his eyes. “I’m gonna take a shower.” He grabs one of the bags and slings it over his shoulder—his injured one. He forgot he was injured. The cloth strap shouldn’t hurt so much on it, but his knee buckles and he almost falls over. “Argh...” He quints his eyes shut, waits for it to stop hurting. Shadow’s already close to him, grabbing his other shoulder.

“Vio,” he hears his voice. “Are you okay?”

He waits—the pain subsides. He blinks, his eyes sting. He rubs at them again. “Goddesses, that hurt.”

“Maybe,” Shadow says. “When you get out of the shower, I should clean it again. I can wrap it up, maybe. I think.” Vio doesn’t think Shadow can, and he fails to see how much that would do. It still hurts like hell.

“It’s fine,” he says. He slings it over his other shoulder and walks to one of the bathrooms he saw earlier.

Shadow lets him go, but Vio can hear his sigh.

He just throws his bag on the floor, locks the door because that’s what he’s used to doing (his mom never knocks and always comes straight in) but he doubts Shadow would just walk in or something. He turns on the water and strips down slowly, to avoid hurting his shoulder any further.

He tries to think about a way to do this without hurting his shoulder. The water is probably going to hurt his shoulder a lot, so he doesn’t want it to hot, but he doesn’t like cold showers. He settles for a lukewarm temperature and, grimacing and clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, steps into the shower, sliding the glass shower door shut as he enters.

The water his his shoulder painfully—the pressure is not hard. It should not hurt the way it does. Vio hisses out a breath and tries to calm down—yes, there is a chance he’ll turn into a zombie or die, but right now, hygiene is important.

The bite throbs—Vio uses the hand attached to his uninjured shoulder to wash himself, but the throbbing is distracting. He swears—he can feel it, right beneath the broken skin from the bite, and in his chest, and in his head. He takes a deep breath, rinses the soap from his hair (doesn’t rub at his eyes because he does not need soap in his eyes) and just keeps trying to stay calm.

He suddenly feels lightheaded.

He shuts off the water and slides the door open—he feels like he needs to catch his breath. He feels nauseous, dizzy. He can’t swallow, he hates how his hair sticks to the skin on his face. Why is the bathroom so bright? Why is the world spinning? He tries to step out but crashes to the floor instead. He groans—the bathroom is full of steam? His body feels warm. His shower wasn’t hot. Why is he shivering?

He tries to pick himself up, but falls back down. He groans again. Black spots dance in his vision—he groans a third time and passes out.

The first thing Shadow thinks when he hears groaning—and he blames how attractive Vio is and his naturally dirty mind—is that Vio’s masturbating. He get’s it—he’s alone, he’s in the bathroom, he’s not about to judge and very much tries to mind his own damn business and not think about Vio like that (for multiple reasons; it feels rude to keep thinking about Vio so sexually and also, thinking about that right now would just have him way too aroused than he needs to be right now) but then, common sense returns and he remembers—in spite of his stupid teenage hormones—Vio was bitten. Zombies groan. Has he turned?

_That’d be embarrassing,_ he thinks. _Becoming a zombie in the shower._ He slowly makes his way to the bathroom and presses his ear to the door—no groaning. He isn’t even sure if he’s hearing breathing. Is Vio still alive?

“Vio?” He calls. He tries the door knob—it’s locked. “Vio, is everything okay?” There’s no response. “I swear, I’m not that much of a pervert, I wasn’t listening to you, but I heard groaning and I was worried, are you okay?” He tries again. He knocks. “Vio?”

The silence is taunting him.

“Vio, I swear to the goddesses,” he says. “If you’re dead in there...”

He thinks back—when he and Vio looked through the house, they had looked at the bathrooms. He swore there was a window in that bathroom, and since the house was all one story. He tries one more time, knocking. “Vio?”

When there’s no response, he goes to the backyard. He ignores the zombie—now a still corpse, rotting in the yard and not seeing him, not seeing anything—and thinks he found the window. The glass is frosted, not allowing him to see in. He slides it open, upwards and looks in.

Vio is, concerningly, on the floor. His body is limp—he doesn’t move. He is bare ass naked. His shoulder is bleeding, straight through the bandaid Shadow should have guessed would have done nothing.

He steps inside and shuts the window behind him. Against his better judgement, he nudges Vio in the leg with the toe of his shoe, very much trying to avoid looking at him (but of course, he really wants to look at Vio, wants to admire every ride of his body, wants to run his hands down that chest and stick a few of his fingers in his—). 

Vio groans again, but he doesn’t seem conscious. Did he pass out?

Shadow unlocks the door—it swings open, out into the hall. He opens one of the drawers and pulls out a towel that somehow feels like it’s been recently clean and looks down at Vio. He’s laying on his stomach. His eyes are closed. Shadow chooses to focus his gaze on the center of Vio’s back, trying to fight that urge to look just a bit lower. He tries to wrap the towel around his waist. “Vio?” He keeps asking. “Wake up. Is something wrong?”

He does not have the upper body strength to do this, but he manages to pick him up—making sure that towel is covering the important bits.

Vio’s heavy and awkward to carry—the fact that he is just dead weight doe not help. Slowly, Shadow manages to bring him out into the hallway. By the time he reaches the living room in the couch, his arms are shaking and feel like they’re about to snap at the elbows. He lays Vio down, still dripping wet and gasps out something like, “Holyfucking _hell,_ why are you so heavy?”

Hesitantly, Shadow reaches out to look for a pulse—he does find it, so Vio isn’t dead. He cups his cheek, looks at his closed eyes. “Vio?”

Vio doesn’t move.

It’s hours later when Vio finally opens his eyes—the throbbing his chest, head and shoulder had followed him into his unconsciousness, but now, as his vision starts to unblur and he can process things, the throbbing slows, stops altogether. 

He has no idea why he’s on the couch.

All of a sudden, Shadow is by his side. “Are you okay?”

All Vio can think to respond with is, “Why am I out here?”

“I...I heard groaning. I thought something was wrong, thought...you turned or something, but then it stopped...I panicked. Are you okay? You were running a fever earlier, and you wouldn’t wake up...”

“I’m fine,” he says and it’s almost totally true. The throbbing has stopped—but he still feels lightheaded and slightly nauseous. He brings the towel around his waist closer to him and tries to stand. He pitches forward—Shadow has to catch him and puts him back on the couch. It looks like Shadow’s also showered—and he’s wearing a long sleeved, v-neck black shirt. “Is that the shirt we saw in the closet.”

“Yeah,” Shadow says. “But I washed it first. That’d be weird. And I wasn’t about to put on that woman’s dress—that’d be even weirder, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to go that far in seducing you.”

Vio nods. “Okay.”

Shadow sighs and grabs Vio’s phone—he had left it on the couch at some point. “I’m looking this up.”

“Zombie bites?” Vio asks.

“Yes,” Shadow says. “Someone has to have an idea of what to do.” He types something, taps something and frowns. “Okay, this is some blog post. Um...”

“Read it aloud,” Vio sighs.

“Ticket prices are at a new low,” Shadow reads. “Now is the perfect time for you to take your beloved on a romantic vacation or a second honeymoon. So, there you are, lounging on a beach with silver sands, the sunset coloring your darling’s features in a way that’s doing what you thought was impossible—making them even more stunning. You’re just about to lean forward and capture their...” Shadow trails off—in the back of Vio’s head, he wonders what the hell this is, before he hears Shadow speak again—he is obviously holding back laughter. “...sexy lips, when all of a sudden, a man appears behind them, grabbing your love and biting into some part of them.”

He keeps reading. “So, there you are, on the beach, and your lover/significant other/hubby/whatever is being bitten. What do you do? As this person means a lot to you, it’s unlikely you’ll just run the other way, leaving them to their fate, despite the news and media insisting you save yourself in a situation like this. If you choose to help, you should briefly take a moment—if you have it—to process what is going on. In certain situations, you might not have a minute. If they are being bitten in the neck, head, chest, or somewhere else vital, you should act immediately. However if they’re being bitten in the hand, foot, wrist, arm...” Shadow frowns. “Toes? ...You have a few seconds in which you can decide what to do.

“First, try to see if the one who attacked your precious is infected (you know what with). If they’re hair is falling out, they are missing limbs, bones are broke, eyes are bloodshot, skin is a sickly shade, they cannot speak, they are incredibly aggressive, they are likely infected. What you do next can totally depend on your views on the infected—in a situation like this, it is understandable to not view them as simply a person with a terrible illness. In this situation, you and your beloved had been on your honeymoon minding your own business and the two of you are the victims—taking violence against the zombie would really be an act of defense, however, it is not recommended you go out of your way to harm any zombies.”

“Shadow,” Vio interrupts. “This article is I’m sure, a very accurate and valid work, but we’ve already gotten away from the zombie that did this.”

He sighs. “If that was our honeymoon, it sucked _ass,_ Vio. Why does this keep talking about a honeymoon?” He scrolled through it. “Um...” He paused. “After you’ve gotten your darling away from the zombie through any of the various methods, it’s time to tend your lovely’s wounds. Mortality rate very much depends on the damage that’s been done. If they’ve been bitten multiple times, are missing limbs, missing organs, etc. the chance of them being turned into a zombie and or dying is so high that trying to help them will decrease your own chances of survival. Helping them is not recommended. The more injured they are, the less chance they have of not getting infected, and you are urged to quarantine them and leave them alone.”

“Well, I was only bitten once,” Vio says.

Shadow’s quiet. “...Unfortunately, the odds of survival and or infection can not be much better if you’ve only been bitten once in a non-vital area—turning then is slow. To indicate symptoms of turning, look for signs of a fever, nausea, black outs, trouble swallowing, aggressive behavior, weight loss, dizziness, forgetfulness, and fear of water. Cleaning the would, wrapping it up, etc. might help again s the infection, but there is few signs of it working and it might just make the turning process longer. Amputation of an infected limb is strongly not recommended—it can result in infection, especially if you are not trained. This is reality, not The Walking Dead. It’s understandable you will want to be with your one and only in the process of turning, but the odds are against you, and the infected have been shown to have little to no understanding that their bites are harmful. Even if they cared about you before, once they turn, they are still a danger to you. Put as much distance between the two of you as possible, but keep an eye on them.

“Lastly, hold onto hope. This infection might be the new reality and it might tear some of our loved ones away, but there is a shred of hope. We are all looking for a cure. There might be nothing stopping you or a loved one from turning, but that doesn’t mean this will last forever. There is hope.”

The room is silent. Finally, Shadow says, “Please tell me...that it’s just the passing out and fever and that’s it. There’s nothing else?”

Vio sighs and reaches out, grabbing onto his hand. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it.”

“No,” Shadow says. “No. No, you have to—“

“Shadow, I had almost all of those. The fever, the nausea, the dizziness, trouble swallowing...Shadow, I think we have to—“

“No,” he says. “I...I...No. I spent so long working up the courage to talk to you, Vio! I was so excited to meet you, to be with you, and then we got to leave the city I always hated together, and now...You can’t die now! What about your friends!”

Nothing is making a whole lot of sense—Vio’s pretty sure he’s gonna die. “I’m sorry, Shadow. And...I’m not saying that it’s certain, but at the very least, we should prepare for the very real possibility that...I might turn. And then you’ll have to figure something out.” Shadow is shaking. “You can stay here. Take the gun, take my money and all the provisions...I won’t need them.”

“But what about you!” Shadow shouts. “Vio, I’m not just gonna abandon you.”

He knows he isn’t going to budge on this. There isn’t a chance. Vio sighs—he is so tired. Was sluggishness listed as a symptom? Now he’s paranoid. “Fine, Shadow—look, I’m exhausted, what about we both go to bed and we’ll talk about this is in the morning.”

Shadow crosses his arms. “We can talk all you want, but so long as there’s even a chance of you surviving this...”

Vio sighs. “Well, just in case I do turn, can you bring the gun to bed with you? Just in case?”

Shadow sighs. “Fine.” He grabs the gun, looks at Vio—and then treks off to one of the guest rooms.

Vio had almost forgot he was in a towel for the entire conversation.


	5. Fluff and Then...No Fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to add a quick apology for this being like, two thousand and three hundred words compared to the like, five to six thousand the others are—I got distracted by watching playthrough of the Walking Dead vr game and I thought I didn’t like zombies or the walking dead, but I think I’m going through a horror phase now. The next chapter will be longer (and if it isn’t, you are legally allowed to stab me in the center of my skull with a screwdriver, so long as it doesn’t kill me; because then I can’t give you any more chapters, can I?).

_Vio’s on top of him—he is topless, he has Shadow pinned down, and he’s wearing a grin that makes his blood rush south. His skin is warm...Shadow reaches out, cups his cheek. Vio leans forward and right as their lips brush against each other and they’re about to kiss, Vio pulls away and presses his mouth to his right shoulder. He bites down hard—his mouth fills with blood. He chews the flesh and muscle in his mouth, Shadow isn’t making a sound—_

The door to his bedroom creaks open and Vio sits up. He wipes at his brow—his shoulder is throbbing. “Shadow?” He’s standing in the doorway. “What is it?”

“Can’t sleep.” He steps closer. “The rooms are so dark. I like the dark and all, but they feel so empty.” He closes the door behind him and sits on the edge of Vio’s bed. “I keep thinking about you.”

If Vio’s really infected, Shadow shouldn’t be in the same room as him—what if he turns? Shadow’s unarmed. Vio’s larger. But the fact that Shadow doesn’t want to leave him alone, paired with the fact that he doesn’t want to be alone has him not arguing. “So you want to crawl in bed with me?” Vio asks.

Even in the dark, he knows Shadow’s smiling. “Of course.” The bed creaks and shifts beneath the new weight—A warm body is next to him, his head on his chest. Shadow’s sigh is almost content sounding—this shouldn’t feel right, but it does. Vio can turn any second—no one knows what’s going on anymore. They could never get a cure. Vio could turn into a zombie and turn on Shadow in an instant, it should not feel good to have a potential victim he doesn’t want to hurt so close to him when he could be so dangerous, but the warmth chases any lingering nausea from his dream away, soothes the pain in his shoulder, calms his heart. This is new—usually it beats quickly around Shadow. Slowly, Vio brings his fingers through Shadow’s hair—it’s soft, still damp. Vio’s dried forever ago, and he had put clothes on before going to bed, instead of going to sleep naked which had kind of been tempting, but he was very glad he didn’t do that, that’d be weird.

“I’ve had a crush on you,” Shadow says. “For years. Ever since Drama, freshman year, the class...” Vio keeps playing with his hair, letting Shadow talk. “I knew you didn’t want to be there. But we had that...dumb assignment, where we were supposed to talk about something important to us, and I remember...You brought a photo.”

“I remember that,” Vio says. His voice is a little hoarse. “It was of some holiday party I went to with my friends, and it was the first time I had ever been allowed out of my house to visit someone else’s. I was in the eighth grade, and I put the photo in a frame one of them gave me for my birthday.”

“I remember...Zelda was there,” Shadow recalls. “And you hesitated and then turned to ask her if she remembered whether the frame was given to you on your birthday or over the holidays, and she said birthday, and you were like, ‘oh, yeah, she’s one of the people in the photo.’” He nestles into Vio more, his arms wrapping around his waist. “I remember it so much because everyone talked about what the object was and they would either give a really funnny story or a really sad one that usually had them in tears...your’s wasn’t either of those. You weren’t easy to read. You always seemed so...stand offish, and cold...but you sounded so genuine, talking about how much you loved them and how they were your best friends and you just really enjoyed yourself then. And you were being so honest and you just sat down, and everyone seemed to think it was boring, but I thought it was the best one there.”

Vio remembers that—even Zelda in drama had recounted a sad story. It was about the necklace she got from Green, back when she was a kid, and she had been diagnosed with an illness that had claimed her mother and everyone had thought she was gonna die, and she hadn’t felt like herself, so Green used to bring different shades of lipstick and would help her put it on, so she felt a bit better about everything, and it had been heart wrenching. Someone had talked about their first time skiiing. Someone had talked about when they got their set of drums. Someone had talked about the death of a loved one and what they left them. Yet, Vio can’t remember what Shadow talked about.

“And then there was that improv scene we did,” Shadow grins.

“I remember that,” Vio says and it’s true. “The prompt was just ‘tragedy.’ We were at a funeral for your ex-wife, and you were telling me about how you had loved it when she smiled, but how you hadn’t loved her the way you should have when you married her and you wished you had ended on better terms before she ended.”

“It was so sad. Every improv scene was funny, but not that one. And then it suddenly got romantic and we were so much closer...” Vio pulls his hand out of his hair and Shadow grabs onto it. “I remember it so vividly because I didn’t remember ever noticing before that you’re eyes were so...beautiful.” The room is silent. Shadow shifts and in the dark, Vio thinks he sees Shadow looking at him. “Does your shoulder hurt?”

“A bit,” Vio admits. “It comes and goes.” It’s throbbing like hell.

Shadow leans over and presses his lips against it, through his shirt, gently and looks at him. “You’re so handsome.”

“I think you’re pretty attractive,” Vio says. He does not know what to do—he never got past the hand holding and occasional peck on the lips phase of the relationship with Green, and that had been his only boyfriend ever. He doesn’t know what to do.

Shadow smiles. The room is silent again. “I feel guilty.”

“Because you didn’t hear me? It‘s not your fault—I wasn’t loud enough.”

Shadow sighs. “I didn’t hear my mother either.”

Vio frowns, stills—the room is too quiet. “I’m sorry about her.”

“It’s fine. I was really young. Barely knew her. She just wanted me to call 911. I couldn’t hear her.” He sighed. “She was there for hours, and I was just in the living room. Waiting for her to come back inside.” Shadow grabs his hand tightly. “People I know seem to die at a much higher rate, I shouldn’t have come with you.”

“I’m glad I went with you,” Vio sighs. “This isn’t your fault, I was being dumb. Too reckless.”

“I’m sorry.” Shadow says.

“Let’s just rest, okay?” Vio says. He runs a hand through his hair. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Until then...I’m not a zombie yet, right?” He pulls Shadow just a bit closer. He’s warm—his skin soothes him. He doesn’t have another nightmare.

Zelda was by the ambulances, next to Lana—she had helped her to them, before medics rushed forward, trying to help with the bleeding, and in all that had been happening, Zelda had gotten separated from Green, Red, and Blue. She was hoping they would find her, so she felt being by the ambulance would help them locate her and at the same time, she could comfort Lana who was panicking—the other person who had been attacked by the girl who had dropped had gotten up and grabbed onto someone else. At least three were on the dance floor, not dancing, but dying. Dying and killing.

“Where _are_ they?” Lana asked her, as if she had the answers, and Zelda wished she did.

“I’m sure they’ll find you soon—“

No sooner had the words left her mouth had a tall, red headed girl ran up to them. “Oh, goddesses, Lana!” It wasn’t Cia, but Lana looked overjoyed to be around this person instead. She threw her arms around Lana, cupped her cheek. “Are you okay? You have blood all over.”

“The girl bit me, but other than that, I’m fine.” She was shaking, a bit. “I couldn’t find you, Midna.” That name rang a bell. “Not you, or Cia, or Zant, or Ghirahim—when all the running for the doors was happening, I thought...I thought I’d find you.”

Midna was tall—her skin mostly black with splotches of pale skin, dressed in a black dress with a long skirt. “I’m sorry, I swear—one minute, you were there and fine, and then you were gone. And then I heard you, checking over that girl, and I knew it was you but a crowd was forming.”

“It’s fine...” Lana grabbed her hand. Zelda realized they were likely a couple and hadn’t realized it. She had had a few bruises showing on her skin, from being in that crowd, with everyone pushing and shoving to get out first, some people had pushed _hard._ But it was nothing to worry about.

She looked around for the thousandth time and wondered for the millionth where Vio was—twenty minutes hadn’t passed, but she didn’t see Vio’s car anywhere in the parking lot from where she was. Was he okay? She pulled out her phone and looked for a new text from him, but there was nothing.

She still ha her phone in her hand when the police walk out, bringing with them one girl—the one who started it. Her eyes were wide, she was shaking, blood was all around her mouth and she looked terrified. She kept mumbling, “No, no, no.” She was crying. Zelda looked over at her, she was in handcuffs. The cop near her suddenly dropped too, and the girl jumped, turning to look at the fallen cop. 

Every other cop in the area turned to face her, down on the ground. Her cap had fallen off, the bun her hair was in disheveled. The cop groaned—and at least three different cops shot her twice in the head.

The gunfire was deafening, Zelda found herself leaning closer to Lana, who’s eyes had widened considerably. The girl with blood all around her mouth and wearing handcuffs looked horrified.

Another cop fell and one nearby turned their gun on him before he quickly got up. “I tripped!” He said. “I only tripped, don’t shoot!”

Zelda’s skin crawled—she could only hope Vio was okay right now.

It had taken way too long to find Zelda, over by the ambulance with Lana. Green noted that Midna was sitting by there too, an arm around Lana’s shoulders while they sat, and Zelda was standing with her arms hugged to her chest. When Green walked over, she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him.

“Well...” Green said, hugging his childhood best friend tightly and trying very, very hard to not start shaking. “That was the worst school dance I think we’ve gone to.”

“Where were you?” Zelda asked. “I thought you were nearby...I lost sight of you in the crowd.”

“Sorry, I tried to find you, but then Blue, Red and I were getting questioned by the police. They’re trying to get sense of this.” He grabbed Zelda’s hand—it was a simple, comforting gesture, they had held hands since they were kids. Honestly, to Green, it felt more platonic than anything. Nearby, a police car sat, a small girl with a bloody mouth sitting in the back seat and crying her eyes out. “Is that the girl who bit Lana?”

Lana grimaced. She wasn’t even looking at Green and Green hadn’t expected her to newer, had only expected Zelda to know, but slowly, she nodded. Midna seemed to pull her a bit closer. “You should press charges. I mean that’s assault. Or I can beat her up.”

“Midna, she’s arrested,” Lana said. Her bite had gotten sewn up and was now covered by a band-aid, large and square. “It’s basically over.” Midna squeezed her shoulder.

“Okay, Lana...” Midna’s voice was surprisingly soft. The two of them went back into silence.

“Where’s Blue and Red?” Zelda asked.

Green’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. “Last I saw them, they were making out. It was a little weird, but Red was freaked out and Blue was trying to comfort him and...Yeah.”

“Well...” Zelda’s gaze wandered over to the police car. “At least Blue tried to comfort him...” Red had always been prone to panicking, it seemed, to the point where they didn’t always know how to calm him down, especially Blue. 

Green followed her gaze—the girl in the police car was staring right at them. Just staring. And twitching. She had stopped crying, though her eyes were red and puffy and the blood around her mouth was beginning to dry. Slowly, they all made eye contact with her—and she slammed her head into the window. Zelda flinched—she started hitting the window, trying to break the glass, slamming her head in it, her mouth moving, but Zelda couldn’t read lips.

Green got up, grabbing the attention of a nearby cop. “Officer, that girl...” He gestured to the car.

Zelda spoke up, “Shouldn’t you do something?”

The cop shook his head. “Don’t worry about anything, little lady. The situation’s been taken care of and very soon, you’ll be safe at home to recover from what you’ve seen. The window glass is bulletproof. She can’t get to you or anyone.”

Green almost told him that that wasn’t what they were really worried about—yes, that girl should be arrested, but what if she injured herself? Blood was already beginning to appear on the glass, as she pounded on it with her fists, slamming her face into it, going crazy.

Footsteps made him look away—Blue and Red had appeared, holding hands. “Shit, that was fucking crazy,” Blue said, and although Green never swore, he couldn’t help but to agree. He looked at Lana nearby. “Uh...You alright?” He asked.

“Bite got stitched and she didn’t do a whole lot other than bite. ...I think I’m just in shock still. I’ll be fine.” She didn’t seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to—well, anything. Midna seemed to pull her impossibly closer.

With no warning, a few dozen people dropped. The world seemed to, once again, go still and stop turning; and then everyone on the ground seemed to groan.


	6. Y’all Know What Dramatic Irony Is? Like, When The Characters Don’t Know Something In A Story, But The Reader Does.

The morning turns out to be kind of rough for Vio—Shadow’s warm, in his arms, and while the fact that Vio doesn’t have an overwhelming urge to bite Shadow is very relieving, he found himself not wanting to get up. It was how comforting Shadow’s presence seemed to be, paired with his slowly blooming anxiety in his chest, wondering if something bad was just around the bend. And then those two things seemed to form one large, bad thing that paired with another large bad thing that was made out of two smaller, bad things; he hadn’t gotten a text from his friends and he’s still bitten.

He sighs, Shadow stirs. He runs a hand through Shadow’s hair immediately and watches him smile softly. “Did I wake you?” It’s all but a murmur.

“No. I’ve been up—just don’t wanna move.” He kisses his forehead. His bite is still throbbing.

“Honestly,” Vio says but trails off for a moment—he has a lot of feelings, bubbling up in his chest and he kind of wants to spill his guts right now, tell Shadow everything, but they’re in this together. In the long run, Vio doesn’t need to share anything and just freak Shadow out, because that’s all it’ll manage to do. “Mood,” he says.

Shadow grins and looks up at him, his eyes tired and half-lidded, but not really in a seductive way. “Goddesses, you’re hot. So hot.” He sighs and relaxes more. There’s a pause, and the room is quiet. “We need to wake up,” Vio says at last—there’s things to do, he thinks. There has to be things. Some way to prepare, ways to make everything more easy. They should go around the house, make sure they know what they have and what they don’t. Try to find a way to get what they don’t have. He swears he can remember, driving through a town one of the few times they had come here, they had gotten lost somewhere along the way and took another route...a few homes, a few stores. There had to be a grocery store somewhere, he just didn’t know where. He’d find out—he had the internet. How was the town doing with everything that was happening?

Shadow yawns. “We do?”

“Yes.” He slowly sits up, forcing Shadow to lift his head off of his chest. The movement makes his shoulder throb and the pain makes his head spin. He’s sitting up, but leaning against the wall, head back, staring at the ceiling. “Fuck.”

Shadow sits up too, rests his head on his chest again. “Any chance you’re actually feeling better and that swear and pained expression you just had on was not because of your shoulder?”

Vio sighs. “What else would it be if not my shoulder? Another bite?”

“No.” Shadow rubs at his eyes. “Definitely not a bite.” He strokes the side of Vio’s face, smiling softly. “Mm...” His thumb goes over his lips—Vio’s face is on fire. “Maybe something else?”

“What else?” Vio’s rushing to think of an answer.

Shadow lazily strokes his cheek some more. “Goddesses, you’re cute...”

Vio pulls away and gets up—his shoulder still throbs, but he’s trying to ignore it. He moves to the other end of the room, where he had placed his duffel bag and rifles through it until he finds an outfit. He pulls out some jeans and a really loose fitting top he hopes won’t hurt his shoulder. Shadow sits up a bit more in his bed, watching intently and it’s only then Vio remembers he’s in the room and he’s about to undress in front of him. He turns to face him, but can’t think of anything to say. It’s not like he’d mind terribly if Shadow were to watch him, but also, that’s weird. Shadow shouldn’t...He shouldn’t _want_ Shadow to see him like that, right? He doesn’t know.

“If this is gonna weird you out,” Shadow says. “I can get out. So you can get dressed in private.”

“It’s fine,” Vio says—and he’s pretty sure it is. His tone makes it sound like it is. He manages to keep his face straight, almost deadpan as he slowly takes off his shirt. He doesn’t exactly want to strip down slowly in front of Shadow, but his shoulder still hurts and he doesn’t want to move too quickly and injure it further. He swears, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shadow’s eyes sparkle in interest. 

He takes off the basketball shorts he wore to bed a bit quicker, sliding it down his legs until it pools at his ankles and then stepping out, pulling his jeans over his legs too. The shirt is a little more difficult, especially since, once’s it’s on, the loose fabric constantly rubs against his shoulder that seems a little too sensitive.

He still feels weirdly emotional, all of his feelings boiling over and filling his chest; he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore. Is he going to just turn into a zombie? Will a cure ever be found? Will he be conscious of his actions when he turns? Is there a way to fight it? What will happen to Shadow, his friends?

It is seven in the morning. Vio’s been up for little more than fifteen minutes and already, he is exhausted.

Vio checks all their bags. They had run out of anything in the cooler, because the ice had eventually melted and the few things that were still in it had gone bad, but they still have some dried meat and fruit, a pound of trail mix, a handful of granola bars and a liter bottle of root beer. Vio manages to find the time to look at his phone, look at Google Maps. There’s a grocery store, a twenty six minute drive to the north, and it’s one of the few things of note in the town. Vio just worries about the town—was there so little of the population that had turned that life continued on, or had the majority became zombies and life was horrible? Could be either of the two. The news had said, in general, smaller towns were more okay than cities, but that didn’t mean that _all_ towns were doing hunky-dory, he was sure.

Shadow helps him look around the house to see what’s already in the house. They find a (metric fuck ton) of alcohol—wine, whiskey, beer, gin, vodka, one bottle smells like cinnamon and vanilla—and some canned peaches and what _might_ be soup, but the label’s been worn off. The contents of the can might not even be good anymore. In the freezer, he finds a frozen loaf of bread, and some frozen pizzas and—

He jerks back with a stifled scream, the freezer door he had lifted open falling down now that he’s not holding it up, slamming shut as he falls to the floor, barely catching himself. In a matter of seconds, Shadow’s there. “What happen?” He asks.

“There was a hand. In the freezer.” He gets up. He knows he saw it. He knows.

“Are you sure?” Shadow asks.

He finds himself snapping, “Yes, I’m sure!” He opens the freezer again and looks inside, certain he’ll see it—pale and clenched, bloody.

There is no hand to be found. 

“I don’t see any hand,” Shadow says.

“It was _there,”_ Vio insists.

“What does it look like?” Shadow asks. He’s obviously trying to be patient.

“Pale. In a fist.”

Shadow hesitates. If Shadow was the one freaking out, and Vio was looking through the scarce contents of the freezer in search of a disembodied hand, he’s sure his gaze would scream, _You’re an idiot._ “Did you maybe see your own hand?”

“No, it was bleeding. The fingers were dripping blood.”

“...Vio,” he says, his tone is gentle. “It’s in the freezer. If it’s been in the freezer, it’s likely been in there a long time.”

“It was there,” Vio says.

“...Was the blood frozen?”

“No, it was....dripping.” He tries to think—can blood freeze?

“Yeah,” Shadow sighs. “Nope. You’re resting now.”

“No, I’m fine.” Shadow grabs his hand and tries to drag him out of the kitchen. “No, really—“ He’s only been up for five hours, most of which he’s only used to talk and joke around with Shadow. His shoulder still hurts, his head is pounding, and his eyes are betraying him. “Shadow—“

“Vio,” Shadow says, calmly, already leading him towards the bedroom they both slept in the night before. “It’s fine. These last few days have been stressful. You’re tired. You can sleep and I’ll take care of everything.” He opens the door and continues to drag him to bed, pushing him down and straddling his waist once he is down, until he stills and doesn’t seem like he’s going to struggle anymore. “We’ll figure out what to do from here when you wake up and you’re more energized.” He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “Just rest now.”

He realizes that every time he’s fallen asleep, he’s had his phone next to him—in case he gets a text. He can’t sleep now, not when there’s even a chance he’ll hear from his friends, he keeps sending texts, there’s never a response, what if they finally respond? “Wait, my phone—“ Shadow keeps him down, on the bed.

“—will be on the couch, right where you left it, when you wake up.” He leans closer, kisses his forehead. “Try to sleep, okay?” He cups his cheek, rubs the pad of his thumb against his skin as he stands, sliding his hand down to his neck before pulling it off altogether, already moving towards the door. 

Vio tries to argue more, but before he can even think of what to say, Shadow’s already closed the door behind him. 

He sighs, throws his head backwards. He can try to sleep all he wants—it’s not happening, not with these thoughts in his head and this ache in his shoulder.

The living room is quiet. It’s making it difficult to relax—all he can think of is Vio’s heartbeat, audible, in his chest that Shadow had his ear pressed against. He had only ever dreamed about being this close to him.

On the couch, Vio’s phone vibrates. Shadow looks over at it and kind of wants to pick it up and look, but what if it’s private? Vio would be mad if he did something like that. He chooses not to and instead goes into the kitchen, looks through the cupboards. He finds a metal pot that he rinses off real quick and places on the stove before going ito the cupboard and grabbing a can with a worn label. The last word was definitely soup—but before that, all Shadow could make out was a c. Except, that could have been part of a d, or an o. He goes through the drawers and finds a can opener that’s dull and almost rusted but it works.

The contents of the can are red—tomato, soup? Maybe? Probably? He pours it into the pot and looks at the label before filling it with water from the tap and pouring it in. For a moment, he just stares blankly at the pot, as if it’ll cook faster under his gaze. He knows for a fact Vio isn’t about to sleep for long, and also, it takes him forever to make anything.

He sighs and goes back to the couch, running a hand through his hair. The phone vibrates again. Shadow tries to ignore it. There isn’t a whole lot to do right now—and not a whole lot sounds like it’ll actually be able to distract him, because at this point, it kind of feels like everything is really just a distraction from reality, from whatever is happening outside. Him and Vio are going to have to find a way to get groceries, though Shadow gets the feeling Vio isn’t going to be all that willing to go out in public with that bite wound on his shoulder, but there is no way he’s going alone. He doesn’t really want to leave Vio’s side at all—when he turns, Shadow wants to be there.

Maybe that’s weird—but he’s only just really been able to form any sort of relationship with Vio. They’ve kissed and held hands...And when he flirts with him, Vio doesn’t seem disgusted or anything. He just wants whatever it is they have to last as long as possible, because he knows it’s going to end eventually.

He gets up and goes back to the kitchen, stirs the soup that’s beginning to smell a bit like tomatoes and then shuffles back. Goddesses, this is boring without Vio. He just wants to crawl in bed with Vio and kiss him until he can’t breathe—but maybe making out with Vio in a bed is a bit too far—they haven’t even known each other for a week. Well...Shadow’s known Vio for a lot longer, to the point where if someone asked him what he knew about Vio, he’d probably seem like a stalker, but he swears—he just happened to run into Vio all the time. He would see him at the grocery store, or at the mall, or in the hallways, or out on the street and Shadow would swoon all the time.

He likes seeing Vio like this—not just run ins, not just _seeing_ him.

The phone vibrates again. Shadow ignores it.

He knew Vio adored fruit flavored candies and grape soda. He knew Vio was a size eight in shoes. He knew Vio visited one shop in the food court at the mall so often, the girl behind the counter knew him well. Not stalking, he swore—Vio was just always where Shadow wants to be before he gets there.

Of course, Vio was usually there with an adult, who Shadow had guessed was either his mother or father. It changed—but usually it was his mother, always there to tell him that candy wasn’t good for him, that he should drink water instead of soda, that _those_ shoes had too high of a heel and Vio was tall enough as is and he’d likely trip in them and why did he want shoes with a heel like that anyway, and could you please stop being so nice to the cashier, we’re in a rush, don’t tip her. His father was a bit nicer, but he would frown in disappointment and occasionally ask what his mother would think, and Vio would stop whatever harmless thing he was doing and set whatever cool thing he had found down.

He had dreamed of working up the courage to try to befriend Vio. Talking with him in the hallways. Hanging out with him outside of school. And then it moved from “befriend” to “date, and then hopefully marry and maybe have his babies even though that’s impossible.” He wanted to hold his hand. He wanted to stop by his locker and flirt with him. He wanted to give him flowers, and candy, and take him out for lunch and dinner and spend the night with him and go shopping with him and do everything with him.

But he didn’t have the money to buy much, wasn’t out to anyone that wasn’t in GSA with him or drama, and Vio was always hurrying to his next class or talking with his friends and Shadow knew somehow it wasn’t gonna work out. He could work up as much courage as he wanted—it didn’t matter. If Vio wasn’t interested and didn’t have any time, then courage didn’t matter.

Vio’s phone vibrates again and Shadow can’t help but want to look at it—if it’s personal, he’s gonna feel bad, but what if it’s important? He looks at it, turns it on and goes to messages.

Green’s sent him multiple texts. _Hey, Blue told us. Are you gonna be okay? Who’s the guy that went with you? I’m really sorry. Can we talk, Vio?_ Shadow scrolls upwards and looks at some of the texts the two of them traded. When he finds Green’s texted Vio with a “Hey, we really need to talk, Vio,” and Vio’s responded with a “I already know, it’s cool. Zelda’s been crushing on you forever,” he stops. That was way too personal. He scrolls all the way back down and shuts off the phone, placing it back where he found it.

There’s a knot in his stomach. That felt way too personal. He shouldn’t have done that.

But he wonders what Zelda was just texting Vio.

He fell into a light doze, and was then drawn out by the throbbing on his shoulder. He’s staring up at the ceiling and wondering how long he’s been in here.

The door opens—Shadow’s holding a tray with a bowl and a sleeve of crackers. He grins at Vio. “Sleep well?”

“Definitely not,” Vio sighs. He sits up and Shadow places it on his lap before sitting down at his side.

“I was worried you were hungry,” he says, moving a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Are you feeling any better?”

Vio shrugs. “I don’t know anymore.” He sits up and looks down at the bowl. “Thanks.” He brings a spoonful to his lips—it’s lukewarm but he chooses not to complain. Shadow just stares at him. Vio doesn’t know whether to comment on it or not. He doesn’t want to be rude, but is Shadow being rude by staring so intently? If Vio’s being totally honest, he kind of likes the attention, but he isn’t sure if it’s the attention he wants—if he’s being admired or under scrutiny.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Shadow asks.

Vio smiles at him. “It’s just a bit cold. It tastes fine.” He swallows another spoonful. “Have you eaten?”

“Not really that hungry,” Shadow replies. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I figured I’d make you food. I couldn’t find much though.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “We’re gonna need to get more food soon. You think there’s any grocery stores around that are open?”

“We’ll have to check soon,” Vio says. He opens the crackers and dips a saltine into the red liquid. The soup is pretty lack-luster, but he should probably have something in his stomach, and it’s refreshing after only eating jerky, raisins and granola bars. “We’ll figure something out.”

Shadow nods. He relaxes next to Vio and curls up close to him, sighing. “You’re so warm...” He rests the back of his hand on Vio’s forehead—and then drags it down his cheek, slowly caressing his face. “No fever,” he murmurs. “...Probably.” Vio doesn’t question it.

He finishes the bowl’s contents and looks at Shadow. They’re...just staring at each other.

“...Do...” Shadow starts. “Do you really think you might turn?”

Vio doesn’t want to answer. “...Don’t you think so?”

“I thought I was going to crash the car and kill both of us somewhere along the way,” Shadow said. “So, yeah.”

Vio sighs—he doesn’t want to think about this. He wraps an arm around Shadow’s waist and pulls him close, lying down. Shadow’s weirdly comfortable—he feels warm and his presence is...comforting, in this weird way Vio can’t explain. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and wonders how soon this is going to happen and if he should be so close to Shadow.

Shadow’s keeping himself busy by stroking Vio’s chest through his shirt. The contact is likely sexual, but Vio kind of likes it—he isn’t sure if he should let Shadow continue though. The room is quiet...Vio strokes Shadow’s hair in return.

“I know this is a dumb complaint,” Shadow says. “But I miss my clothes. Like...I want my skinny jeans and t-shirts and all the useless shit I bought at Hot Topic, you know?”

“You’d look good in skinny jeans,” Vio says—that sounds weird.

Shadow grins. “You think so?” Vio just nods. “Mm...What _else_ would I look good in?” His hand slides up his chest to his good shoulder, rubbing gently.

“Um...A skirt?” Shadow hums appreciatively and goes back down to his chest.

“What else?” He’s obviously looking for a specific answer—Vio’s just not sure if he should say what is probably the answer he’s looking for.

“Um...” His hand slides down to his stomach. “...A crop top?” Shadow’s hand is still moving downwards. “...A dog collar and a thong?”

Shadow pulls his hand back and laughs, throwing his head back. Vio had kind of liked the weird, nervous feeling the contact had given him, but Shadow looks adorable. “I was looking for ‘nothing’ but that works too.”

Vio feels himself smile. “I should...” Shadow’s hand is back on his chest, but it’s staying there. “...I should go take my meds.”

“You do that,” Shadow sighs, leaning backwards on the bed. He falls onto his back and pulls his feet up so his knees are in the air. His eyes shut.

Vio’s heart is pounding as he leaves.

Madness.

What was happening was madness.

Everyone was screaming, rushing to find an exit, the people who had fallen were getting up, but it seemed like about half of the cops who had been there had fallen and were now groaning, and the police could only do so much. Everyone was rushing to their cars, trying to leave. Midna had grabbed Lana’s wrist and pulled her away when a paramedic dropped, got up and lunged at her and they had ran away. You would think, that since Zelda, Green, Red and Blue are the main protagonists, they’d do something else, but no.

They joined in with their own screaming. Since Vio was not there with his car, they were all rushing towards the street, running on the sidewalk—but the panic seemed to follow them, like it was spreading throughout the city. A woman fell, and when a man went to see if she was alright, she stood up and proceeded to rip his chest open with her fingers and teeth, and he fell to the ground, screaming and gargling blood.

“Shit!” Blue shouted. “What do we do? Green?”

“Why are you asking me what to do?” Green asked, every word laced with panic.

“I don’t know, I feel like you should be able to do something! You usually know what to do!”

A cop car sped down the street, a man shouted through a loudspeaker, but it wasn’t going any good—whatever he was saying couldn’t be heard through the chaos on the streets. A handful of people—dripping blood and moaning—stood up as if they were going to follow him but he was already gone. Everyone was panicking.

Red tried to grab Blue’s hand but ended up grabbing Green’s by mistake, likely due to the fact they were all in identical tuxes because suits had very little variety. Green didn’t question it, possibly mistaking the hand in his to be Zelda’s, they were all panicking too much to tell.

Did they keep running? Should they stop to try and get a handle on what was happening? Both seemed like bad ideas, so what was a good idea?

A large bus was moving down the street and stopped in front of them, the doors opening, multiple voices shouting, “ _In, in, get in!”_ However, zombies also have ears—the rushed onto it, a handful trying to follow them. One grabbed Zelda by the hair and yanked her backwards, but she elbowed them in the face as hard as she could. Green heard the zombie’s nose break, but Blue was the one who saw the spray of blood and thought for a minute Zelda was injured and the minute she was through the doors, they closed. Whoever was behind the wheel waited a moment for them to get off the steps and stumble their way to a seat, but the minute a zombie slammed their bloody fist on the doors, they were speeding off.

For reasons none of them understood, Zelda was the first to shout “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” which seemed totally out of character—but also, it didn’t look right that there was blood in her hair and on her chest and skirt and a bruise was forming on her jaw and her legs were shaking and her makeup was smudged. The streets didn’t look right, covered in blood while people ate each other, and people screamed. 

A woman looked at them, in their prom gear, covered in blood, and said, “Calm down, girl. You’re safe.”

“But what _was_ that?” She asked. “It tried to take a bite out of my head!”

“...This is gonna sound dumb if I’m wrong,” Red asked. “But were those zombies?” He had already let go of Green’s hand, but he was shaking the most out of all of them—but even Blue was shaking, so maybe that wasn’t that much of a shock. 

“You _do_ sound dumb,” said the woman. “But you aren’t wrong. Something happened. It’s been happening all over the city. This bus has been driving around, picking up people and then dropping them off at a sort of shelter.” There was a large bump, a scream that ended too quickly outside the bus. “Take a seat,” the woman said. “Find one and sit down, we should be there shortly.”

Everyone found a seat and sat down—the bus wasn’t nearly as full as one would hope a bus full of rescued people would be, especially since outside, there seemed to be tons of people. Tons of people that were either being eaten or were eating someone. Outside, a man was screaming and the bus slowed down as if it was going to stop to let him on—but then a zombie grabbed his leg and pulled him to the ground and grabbed at his head and took a bite of his neck and they were still moving.

“Holy fuck,” Zelda said. The others were beginning to learn that when she was scared or in a panic, she said ‘fuck’ a lot. “Holy fuck, fuck, fuck.” Yet another thing that just seemed wrong about all of this. She ran a hand through her hair and looked at herself, likely wondering where all the bruises came from.

Red—who was sitting in front of her and Green with Blue—turned around in his seat and looked at her. “Zelda, are you okay? There was a lot of blood.”

“Wasn’t mine...” She grabbed at her arm. “I didn’t know I could hit that hard...My elbow kind of hurts though.”

There was another bump, shaking the entire bus. “I have a band-aid in my phone case?” Red offered.

“It’s fine, Red,” Zelda said. “It’s not bleeding.”

Green looked outside—it was beginning to rain, as if maybe the clouds had seen all the blood on the streets and wanted to clean it up, but it was little more than a drizzle, a few drops of water dotting the windows. Actual people became more scarce. Now, it was just corpses—not all of them were walking.

“...Where do you think Vio is?” Blue asked—another thing wrong. He sounded concerned, and of all of them to show concern for him, it was Blue. Of course, Blue had a reason to be concerned, but the first person to voice it for their friend.

“Home,” Zelda said. “I pray to the goddesses he is at home, safe and sound and not feeling blood dripping down his back.”

“I didn’t know you could break someone’s nose,” Green said, almost laughing. “That one class on karate really worked wonders, huh?”

“Ha, yeah...” Zelda tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “...I knew I was unlikely to ever wear this dress again,” Zelda said. “But I didn’t think it was gonna be because of a large blood stain.”

Another bump in the road and then the bus stopped. The door opened and a teenager—one younger than them—ran onto the bus. The doors closed behind them, but an elderly man was right behind them. “Wait—“ Before the driver could even open the door again, a zombie had caught up, tearing him to ribbons with sickening ease. The teenager’s face looked pale. The bus already started moving. An adult got to their feet and guided her to a seat, speaking quietly while she trembled.

“Wherever the hell we’re going,” Blue said. “I really hope we get there soon.”

If your definition of “soon” was “a little over thirty seven minutes” then they did get there soon. The bus pulled up to a long curb in front of a large, grey building that just looked like a large, concrete rectangle. It came to a stop—a woman with a tight bun on the top of her head and a very wrinkled pantsuit with the most tired look in her eyes got up, standing in front of the bus. She said something—Blue, Red, Green and Zelda all realized they should not have sat in the back because they barely heard a damn word she said. 

“What did she say?” Red asked.

Green frowned. “...Something about how this place is supposed to be a shelter where we can be treated for any wounds we have and...Something else? I don’t know. I barely heard.”

Hesitantly, people began to get up and shuffle off. “I’ve a bad feeling,” Zelda said. “It’s just—going to a shelter full of people when we should probably be avoiding too many people in one place...” They all stood. “If _one_ person were to turn, I don’t think this would be so safe.”

“We’ll be okay,” Green said, suddenly wanting to try and comfort her. “...We’ll just avoid getting split up.”

Zelda nodded and grabbed his hand again—Green did not voice the pain he felt from having his hands in a death grip. Zelda had always been his height, taller actually, especially in hills, always statuesque, seeming invulnerable to everything. But she had never looked smaller, her eyes wide, her other arm over her chest. Though, since Green had never felt smaller, he understood.

The night air felt cool, but all around, it felt too quiet and the darkness muffled every sound and noise. Green couldn’t hear the metal of the door groaning as he stepped forward to the building, or Blue and Red both whispering so quietly, or Zelda’s deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. All he could hear was his own rapidly beating heart.

As soon as he stepped in, the noise hit him—not in that room. In that room, there was a lot of people in protective gear with firearms, staring at them. A few people in scrubs stood by, like they were ready to help any injured, but even they had what Green was pretty sure was a pistol at their hips. 

The busful looked small in that room. The bus had already left, only the passengers had gotten off. A man looked at them all. “Are any of you bitten?” He asked.

A middle aged woman raised a hand—her other hand was pressed against her bleeding side. A young man in scrubs rushed forward and, with his hand on her shoulder, ushered her towards a door.

The man rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Do any of you have any other sort of injuries that need to be tended to immediately?” Everyone was silent. “Does anyone have an injury that’s relatively minor but will still require attention when a nurse has a chance?” The teenager from earlier—a red haired girl with a flower behind her ear (that was missing petals and looked wilted) raised her hand.

“I’ve a really large cut on leg,” she said. “But it can wait.”

The man nodded, a nurse nearby wrote something down on their hand. “If that’s all,” the man said. “We need you all to split up. Men on the right and women on the left.”

“Wait, what.” People started moving. Green stayed where he was—as did Red, Blue and Zelda.

“So much for not splitting up,” Zelda said.

“Come on!” The man said. “We don’t have all night, and this won’t be the last you see of each other.”

“Oh, goddesses,” Red said. “...Zelda, are you _sure_ you don’t want that band-aid?”

“I-I’m sure...” Zelda let go of Green’s hand. “Just...be careful, you three,” she said. She reluctantly walked to the left, stopping besides the girl with the flower in her hair. A woman stepped in front of the group, said something and they all walked towards a door.

The man looked at all of them, mouthing words—numbers, Green thought. He was counting them. “All of you, head through that door, there should be someone in there if you need a change of clothes.”

From the right, there was a loud _bang!_ Everyone froze—Green looked at the door he was pretty sure lead to wherever that had happened. It was the same door the lady who had been bitten entered. Blue seemed to think the exact same thing, swallowing and locking eyes with Green.

Green was just glad no one he knew was bitten.


	7. Zelda Makes A Friend

“Ah,” the woman said, her hair in a loose, grey bun that was slowly falling out. “Prom?” She asked. She had a thick accent.

Zelda swallowed and looked down at her dress—she had loved this dress the moment she saw it freshmen year, but had gone with another one for homecoming, telling herself she’d wear this dress to prom. She had worn it to prom—and now she had to take it off because it was impractical and stained. “Yes,” she said.

The woman nodded. “Must be rough,” she said. “Was supposed to be a big night, yes?” Then frowned, like she wasn’t sure if she was right about something. “Prom is?” She shook her head and went through a pile of folded clothes. “Must have been pretty.”

Zelda had looked amazing, in her late mother’s high heels she had adored when she was younger but had been reluctant to wear even though she knew they would fit, and the necklace Green had bought her when they were young. The woman handed her an outfit—yoga pants and a spaghetti strap, white tank top. “Try this on,” the woman said, pointing in the direction of an area, closed off with a curtain. “Over there. Come back if the fit’s not right.”

Zelda grabbed the outfit and walked over to the curtained area. She looked at her skirt and sighed. This dress had cost two hundred dollars. She had bought it because she loved the dress and wanted to have a good memory of tonight, and she knew her and her family had the money, ever since they sued that hotel for their horrendously unstable frame that obviously couldn’t keep the building upright, or when the subway exploded for reasons no one understood except the owner and had paid her and her family significantly for the damage done to them—which was just a few broken bones and they had to take the bus, Zelda still didn’t understand what her father had agreed to to get the money—but now...it was such a waste.

She sighed and tried to get the zipper on the back—she couldn’t reach it. She tried to tug the dress off, but it didn’t budge so she went back to trying to grasp the zipper.

“...You need any help?” The woman asked.

“I can’t unzip my dress,” Zelda told her. Footsteps came closer, the woman pushed the curtains aside.

“A lot of blood,” she said. “You injured?”

“No,” Zelda answered. The woman unzipped the back. “Thank you.”

She moved the curtain back in place and slipped out of the dress. It fell on the stone floor. Zelda noticed that she still could feel some blood on her back, sticky and gross, goddesses, that was someone’s blood, but also, it was on her bra—her favorite bra. She looked down at her shoes, but there was just a speck of red on her toes, not on her shoes. Okay. She could deal with that—but if tonight had ruined her dress, her bra and her shoes, she’d be pissed. 

Reluctantly, she took off her high heels and slipped the yoga pants on but almost tumbled over and ended up grabbing onto the curtains. Her feet were starting to hurt, from the shoes, but she ignored the dull throb and pulled the tank top on. It was a size to small, she was pretty sure, but also, it was very long and there was a lot of space in the chest. She adjusted the straps so they weren’t murdering her shoulders and then put her shoes back on before grabbing her dress. She couldn’t get clean—the first thing the woman had told her was the water had been shut off for a couple hours.

She walked back to the woman. She grabbed her dress and looked at it. “There’s no saving this,” she replied mournfully and threw it into a trash can before looking her over. “Do you want different shoes?” She asked.

“No.” She would wear these shoes to her grave—plus her feet didn’t hurt that much. They actually hurt significantly less than the rest of her body and she had been wearing heels for most of her life. She liked being tall.

“Did you go to prom with friends?” The woman asked.

Zelda nodded. “Multiple. It was fun, until one of them left for some reason and then a girl tried to eat someone. I have no idea where he is.”

The woman nodded. “Friends are good. I don’t like going places with men. Too headache. They’re too flighty.”

Flighty didn’t feel like the right word for Vio—he had never been able to hang out with them, even if he said he thought he might be able to, only to never show. But Zelda didn’t that was because he didn’t want to go. Why had he left? She just wished she knew.

The woman pointed to a door. “In there, barracks,” she said. “Rest. Don’t die.”

“Thank you,” Zelda said. She rubbed her arms, wondering why her skin felt so cold as she walked in then she stopped and turned around. “Wait, my phone, in my dress pocket.”

The woman frowned. “Dresses have pockets?”

“Mine does.” It had been the main reason she fell in love with it. She pulled out her dress and reached into one pocket. Nothing but a piece of gum. She reached into the other and pulled out her phone, breathing a sigh of relief.

She realized her current outfit had no pockets as she walked into the women’s barracks.

It was full of women of various ages, most of which were sleeping or at least laying down. A young woman smiled softly at her in the dimmed fluorescent lights and led her to an empty bed, not saying a word.

Immediately Zelda looked at her phone. Her battery had only fifty percent of it’s life. In the cot beside her’s, a teenager looked at her. “You were on the bus,” she said.

Zelda turned to look at her. “Yes,” she swallowed. “I was.”

The teenager had a light tan on her skin and red hair. Her flower was gone but there was an idle petal in her hair and she was now dressed in a baggy blue shirt and basketball shorts. “Those boys you were with, were they your friends?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But only three of them. We went to prom together...” She cleared her throat.

“My name’s Marin.” She smiled gently.

“I’m Zelda.”

“I saw you hanging around at school with them before,” Marin said. “But wasn’t there always one more?”

“Yeah, Vio.” She looked at her phone. “He drove us, but he left prom early, we don’t know why.” She sighed—she didn’t know that Vio was actually, currently, as safe as he could be, in his home with a stranger, but a stranger who meant no harm. “I just hope he’s safe.” She crossed her arms over her chest—the room felt so cold. There was a blanket at the foot of her cot, but it looked thin and scratchy. Before she could even try to grab it, Marin shifted. The springs on her cot groaned as she untied a hoodie that had been around her waist.

“Here. It’s just my hoodie. Might keep you warm, you are in a tank top.”

Zelda smiled a thank you and put it on. It was baggy and there was a stain on the sleeve that looked like mustard, but it was warm. “What do you think is happening?” She asked. “Like, outside and everywhere?”

Marin frowned. “I hope not this. I hope it’s beginning to stop. ...I always thought, if the world was going to end, it was because of global warming or something, but instead, it’s man-eating corpses. Who would have guessed?”

“Anyone prepping for the apocalypse,” Zelda guessed. “The ones who have bomb shelters in their backyards beside picnic tables and grills, stocked full of water bottles and canned food, with the occasional AK-47, just in case.”

“Because it’s their goddesses given right to possess weapons,” Marin sighed. “I always thought it was dumb to own that many guns, but maybe it’s worth it now.”

Zelda sighed. She was getting tired.

A couple rows of cots over, there was a loud groan. Marin turned her head—the light rippled on her red hair briefly before she turned back to Zelda. “What was that?” She asked.

There was another groan, and then a scream. Everyone was up now.

And then everyone was screaming and trying to move away.

Someone had turned, because of a bite or what, it couldn’t be seen, but they had bitten a little girl who couldn’t be much more than ten. A woman in a bulletproof vest with a gun ran over and—without a moment of hesitation—shot a turned woman down. 

The little girl had a large bite wound on the space between her shoulder and her neck. “...My mom,” she whispered. “...You shot her.”

The woman looked at her. “Come on, dear. Let’s get your bite treated—“

The little girl jumped her, small hands grabbed onto her arms as she took a bite out of her throat. From where she was, Zelda noticed there was a bite mark on her ankle.

The armed woman fell to the floor, not even able to scream while the girl pushed herself off of the floor—the front of her stained red, a mouthful of flesh dripping. Even though there was multiple, petrified women in between Zelda and this girl, she swore she could feel her eyes on her.

She lunged forward and immediately, everyone ran for the exits, screaming at the top of their lungs. Zelda didn’t consider herself a coward, however, this seemed like a very good idea. With everyone rushing to get out, the people who heard the screaming and camr rushing in with firearms were pushed against the tide of terrified women and girls. Everyone was screaming and pushing each other out of the way.

A much larger woman shoved Marin out of her way. She fell to the floor with a cry, and for a minute, Zelda thought she froze, but it was more like her mind was a step behind her body as she pulled Marin to her feet and dragged her out of the room.

The groaning was starting to seem louder than the screaming—and Zelda realized that was because it was happening in the man’s barracks too.

Vio didn’t need Shadow’s help, but when he had persisted enough to ask twice, Vio had gladly relented enough to allow Shadow to kiss his shoulder through the bandages and situate his shirt in an attempt to hide them. When that had failed, Shadow had redone the bandages and fixed his shirt again before making Vio put on a hoodie. Now, his wound’s covered, but he’s sweating off at least five pounds.

“What?” Vio asks. Shadow’s grinning and staring at him.

Instead of an actual response, Shadow boops his nose and broadens his grin. Vio flushes. Shadow says, “Damn, you’re hot!” And sits back on the couch to finish tying up the laces on his shoes. 

They had decided earlier they might as well try to find the grocery store and try to get the essentials—Vio has a list in his head; bread, eggs, honey, some sort of protein and or meat, like chicken or something. Rice would do them good. Since he’s only shopping for himself and Shadow, he doesn’t think he’ll need a whole lot of money or a whole lot of food. They’ll have to be careful, because if they buy too much food it could go to waste. Canned fruits or vegetables would be smart. Milk, maybe? Fresh fruit, but probably not a whole lot, to avoid it spoiling. He’s a little nervous, what with his bite on his shoulder, and the searing, dizzying pain that comes and goes.

Shadow has his car keys around his finger. He grins at him. “Ready to go, hot stuff?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Yeah.” Vio looks around. “Let’s go.”

Information’s been slowly trickling in to reach people. The government has yet to collapse or anything, but it might as well—basically, people are still expected to vote and pay taxes, schools are closed, and you are almost guaranteed to be unable to contact the police when you need them. Ambulances are taking forever to show up and goddesses have mercy on you if there’s a fire. Wrecked cars can be found anywhere, holding rotting corpses that may or may not be moving and they’ll either stumble out or be stuck in there, groaning and decaying in the hot air.

Vio locks the door behind them and then sits in the passenger seat beside Shadow. The motor’s quiet while they back up and Vio fixes the GPS. They drive silently until the GPS directs them onto the busiest street they’ve seen in a while, meaning there’s eight cars. A ninth one is pulled over, wrecked with blood running out of a window like a scarlet waterfall, but they don’t look too closely at it. A medium sized store sits, looking a little aged and a bit busy but none the worse for wear.

They park near the front and Shadow locks the car doors. Vio can already feel a throbbing pain in his shoulder. He grabs Shadow’s hand, sees his grin as they walk towards the doors.

It’s busy. Everyone looks nervous and antsy. A child is crying somewhere, but it seems to be more of because children cry than anything. Vio grabs a basket and tries to walk as quickly as he can. The area is so populated, it’s making his anxiety do...something bad, he can’t put an accurate description into words with how much his bite hurts. He tugs Shadow with him.

“Goddesses, your legs are long,” Shadow says, struggling to keep up. “What are we buying?”

“The basics,” Vio says. “Bread, eggs, milk, canned food...” He clears his throat.

“I’m lactose intolerant,” Shadow says.

Vio frowns. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah—well, not like, completely, but I can’t have _much_ dairy. I built up an intolerance for it somehow, I used to be just fine. I try to stick more to like oat milk or whatever when I can. ...I miss a life with cheese, Vi.”

He feels himself smile—he makes a mental note to just buy a small container of oat milk. The aisle he expects to have bread is almost empty, but Vio’s able to grab a loaf of white bread and sourdough. These aisles are confusing, he cranes his neck to look at the signs hanging overhead—if they walk by the one stocked full of ice cream, they should be able to get to the aisle with eggs and milk.

He sucks in a breath and just keeps walking. Shadow follows but at a much more leisurely pace, glancing at every glass door covering pints of ice cream. There is a few dozen pints and Vio fights the urge to grab them—not just because ice cream is amazing but also because something cold sounds amazing, his body is covered in sweat. He just hopes he doesn’t soak his clothes.

Vio had assumed Shadow would have poor impulse control, and even though he looks longingly at the ice cream and tons of other things, he fights the temptation and keeps walking hand in hand with Vio.

“Can you go get some oat milk or whatever while I grab the eggs?” He asks.

“...Yeah, I can do that,” Shadow says, but he’s looking at Vio funny. Vio pulls open one of the doors and sighs—the cold air feels amazing on his skin. In this moment, nothing could top it, nothing in the history of existence is better—not pizza, not sex, not even beating your friends at Monopoly when the game’s lasted for four hours and you’re ready to pass out from the exhaustion, nothing. He grabs the eggs and sighs before closing the door, but it seems to use the last of his strength. He puts the eggs in his basket. His injured shoulder does not appreciate being attached to the arm holding it up.

He sets the basket down and rubs at his upper arm. His shoulder still throbs. He uses his other arm to pick it back up but it feels awkward. He wants to use his other hand. Shadow notices and grabs onto it. “Here, Vi,” Shadow says softly. “Let me hold that for you.” He takes it and holds it easily, putting the small carton of oat milk in there. He grabs Vio’s hand and guides him to another aisle.

Vio doesn’t even know which—he has a migraine now. Goddesses, his entire body hurts. He feels so weak and dizzy, he feels like his skull is about to split open, he feels his bite itching, like some sort of mosquito bite from the darkest depths of hell.

Shadow notices this. He sets the basket down and grabs Vio. “Hey, are you okay?” Vio’s legs shake from the strain of keeping him up. He cups his face and leans forward until their foreheads are touching. Shadow sighs, almost dreamily, and then frowns. “You’re burning up.”

“Let’s just finish—“ Vio tries to insist, but Shadow already sticks a hand into his pocket and pulls out the money he brought with him. He pushes his car keys into his hand.

“Go to the car and wait,” he says. “Rest for a minute, I’ll finish up here quickly.”

Vio doesn’t want to rest—well, of course he does, he wants to do whatever will make this horrible ache in his body stop, but what if when he gets up, he’s not himself anymore? What if he turns all of a sudden? What if he hurts Shadow, the gun should still be in the glovebox. “But...” He almost stumbles and needs to grab onto the front of Shadow’s shirt. “What if I...”

The look in his eyes _must_ mean that he’s thought about this too. “Just go,” Shadow says. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Vio tries to think of anything to say but he just nods. A whole-hearted “ _Thanks”_ lodges in his throat and he forces himself to go back to the car.

He opens the door to the passenger seat and climbs in before closing it. He locks it and then lies back. His head is pounding, it won’t stop. He’s sweating so much. He unzips the hoodie he has on and then takes it off. He’s pretty sure Shadow’s windshields are tinted, so hopefully, no one will notice the horrible bite on his shoulder, the bandages peeking out. He sighs and rubs at his temples.

The pounding follows him into unconsciousness.

He opens his eyes—he heard something. He looks over at the driver’s side. Shadow’s rapping at the window. Vio suddenly remembers he had locked the car door. He unlocks them and throws the keys onto Shadow’s seat.

Shadow opens the doors to the back seat and places down grocery bags. “Hey, there—you doing alright?”

Vio mumbles an answer—he doesn’t know _what_ answer, but Shadow looks relieved to get a response. “Alright then, Vi.” Vio closes his eyes but Shadow taps his uninjured shoulder and he opened them again. “Here.” He hands Vio something and when he reaches to grab it, the first thing he notices is that it’s _cold._ He almost moans it feels so good on his skin. “That feel good?” Shadow asks. Vio nods and holds it closer to his chest. “You’ll feel better when we’re home and you can sleep.”

Vio mutters something like, “Wha’you buy...?”

Shadow pulls out a twenty and pushes it into Vio’s pocket. “The basics, mostly, you know. ...I found a twenty bill on an empty aisle and when I realized no one was looking for it or anything, I pocketed it, so I thought we could buy a little bit of things that weren’t the basics. I also bought some weird mix of teabags, um...rose hip, peppermint, and licorice? The internet said one of them was good for nausea, another was good for anxiety and the last one is supposed to be good for the lungs? I don’t remember which is which, though. And some honey. I thought you’d be into it and...you look like you could use all of those right now. And then...some other things.”

Vio frowns. “What other things?”

“They only costed about fifteen dollars, I thought it was a good buy. Plus, I reimbursed you.”

“...What did you buy?” Vio asks.

“Just rest, we’re going home right now.”

Vio brings whatever is in his hands closer to him. He cracks his eyes open and notices it’s a water bottle the decides he does’t care, it feels so good. He relaxes into his seat.

He feels like he’s only closed his eyes a couple seconds when the car stops and the doors open. Shadow lean over and pats his cheek. “Come on, Vi...Up.” Vio groans and opens his eyes while Shadow grabs the groceries.

He manages to get out of the car—still holding that heavenly water bottle—and close the door behind him and he unlocks the front door and holds it open for Shadow. There’s something sticking out of one of the bags, leafy and green but Vio doesn’t have the energy to process what it is. Shadow puts the bags in the kitchen and then guides Vio back to his bedroom. “Shadow,” he mumbles, but he has nothing else to say. He is just glad he’s able to process enough to know that yes, that is Shadow putting him to bed.

He pulls Vio’s shirt off of him and yanks off his shoes and socks and then presses him down onto the bed, pulling a thin blanket over him and making sure the water bottle is resting on his chest. “Feels nice,” Vio manages to say.

Shadow smiles. “Good.”

“ _You’re_ nice,” Vio says.

He swears he can see Shadow blushing. He strokes his hair gently. “Yeah?”

“...Do you have the gun?” Vio asks. “In case I turn and try to eat you or something?”

Shadow swallows. “Yes. I have the gun.” He cups Vio’s cheek. “...Please don’t talk like that, though. I know it’s possible it’s gonna happen but...”

Vio smiles. “It’s...It’s fine, Shadow. Don’t worry.”

“...I’ll come to wake you up in two hours,” he says. “...And if you don’t wake up, I’ll slap you.”

“That’s fair.” He sighs and brings the water bottle closer. It’s still ice cold, wet. He hears the door close. He finds himself able to sleep somewhat easier, despite the pain.

His hand shakes with the mug in hand, steam wrapping around his face and heating up his eyes as he quietly opens Vio’s door. He’s actually been asleep for about four hours, but he feels like Vio needed it. He waits outside the door, trying to see if he can hear any sort of groaning. He hears nothing. He pushes the door all the way open and sets the mug on the table by the bed before caressing his face. “Time to wake up, Vi...”

His eyes open. “Shadow,” he murmurs.

“Hey.” Shadow places the mug into his hands. “Peppermint tea. ...I think it’s supposed to help with nausea?”

Vio nods slowly and brings it up to his lips, swallowing a mouthful before setting it down and shifting. “How long was I out?” He rubs at his eyes.

“About four hours.” He reaches forward, and wipes the sleep from Vio’s eyes with his thumbs gently. “I thought you needed it.” Vio yawns adorably. “Are you hungry?” 

“Starving.” Shadow removes his hand. “...Not for like, people though.” This shouldn’t be as reassuring as it is, but Shadow takes comfort in knowing that Vio has some time left.

“Good. I made food. Should be better than the tomato soup I made earlier.”

Vio smiles and throws the blankets off of him before getting out of bed. “I should put on a shirt,” Vio says.

“Well, don’t stop going topless on my account.” He got to his feet and walked towards the door. “I’ll wait out there for you.”

He sits down at the table and waits—Vio is out in a few minutes, but he stops when he enters. “...You made pasta?”

“And it only took three hours! ...I kept wondering why the water wouldn’t boil. I didn’t turn the stove on.”

Vio smiles and sits down across from him. “Was this what you bought that you didn’t tell me about?”

“Yeah—the store was having an ‘End of the world’ sale. I got a lot of vegetables reasonably cheap, and I looked up a good recipe and I figured it would be fun...getting to make you dinner. It’s not much, really, it’s just um...sliced tomatoes, garlic, and zucchini simmered in a some of the truffle oil I found in a cupboard with some spaghetti noodles. And then I got some root beer. Because we deserve it.”

The smile Vio wears means he’s done good. “This is nice, Shadow, thank you.”

He can _feel_ his face heat up, but he doesn’t mind since it’s Vio. “The noodles might be a little undercooked. I got impatient since the water was finally boiling.”

“I’m sure it’s great.” He watched Vio pick up a fork and twirl it into the noodles. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“I really don’t,” Shadow says. “It’s mostly just pasta, or canned food.” He picks up his fork but doesn’t want to look away from Vio. How can someone look so good like him? It’s unbelievable.

A gentle quiet fills the air—at some point, Vio notices his staring so he immediately starts eating his food and looks away, but he swear he can hear Vio chuckle. The sound is music to his ears. He kind of wants to kiss Vio, but they’re eating right now. That might be weird. This isn’t a Disney movie, where the love interest always wants to be kissed. In Disney movies, the love interest is rarely the same sex as the main character and is rarely bitten by a zombie. (Or maybe Shadow’s the love interest? Vio looks more like the main character, with that lovely smile, those bright eyes...)

_Fuck, I’m gay!_

At one point, Shadow has to ask, though he does it quietly, as if maybe they can both pretend this isn’t the conversation topic, “How long do you think you have?”

Vio swallows hard—briefly, Shadow wonders if he should have made the slices smaller. “...I wish I knew, Shadow.”

“Do you think you might be able to fight it off?” The idea sounds great to him, but he doesn’t know what it takes to fight off this virus. Did one have to be young and healthy? Then why didn’t those girls Shadow had been babysitting survive? They had turned easily. Is it where one’s bitten? Does it just take sheer grit and will? He wants to know.

Vio looks down at his plate. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to get bitten.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come quick enough,” Shadow responds.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find the zombie off.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you right away.”

Everything is quiet. For a long, long, long moment, they just stare.

“Shadow,” Vio says. “I...I understand that whatever you feel towards me...is strong. And I want you to know that I’m flattered and...I’m pretty sure I feel the same way. I...” He clears his throat. “Earlier today, Blue texted me...He and the others had found my house, but apparently... something happened. They aren’t sure what, but it was nearly destroyed, swarming with zombies. ...If I had been there, I would have got bitten.”

“You were still bitten,” Shadow points out.

“But I was bitten here. ...I’m glad I got to do this with you. I got to leave home, go on a road trip...” He blushes, just the slightest. “Hang out with a really attractive boy my age...I always wanted to leave home. I’m glad I got to. I’m glad I didn’t have to die there. That would have sucked. And I’m sure slowly succumbing to one bite is better then being torn to shreds by a bunch of zombies...” He sighs. “I just wish my friends were here.”

“...Aren’t we friends?” Shadow asks.

Vio blinks. “Yes...Definitely.” Shadow relaxes. “But they’re still my friends. I’ve run out of minutes. I don’t know if they’re okay...I’m worried about them. At least I have an idea with you, that you’re okay, that you’re going to be okay.”

“Can I kiss you?” Shadow blurts out. This is probably a bad time, but Vio’s been talking and Shadow can’t stop staring at his lips. They look very kissable, as lips can look.

“...Yes.” Vio moves his chair so he’s closer to Shadow. “You can kiss me.”

Shadow hesitates a moment, then leans forward but waits before putting an arm around his neck and pulling him closer.

Vio’s lips are warm—his fever has gone down, but not all the way. It feels good. His lips are soft—though his mouth kind of tastes just a bit like garlic. It doesn’t matter, Shadow isn’t about to let that bother him.

When the two of them finally pull away, Shadow looks at him and cups his face. Vio’s stare is questioning, but both of them are reluctant to break the quiet, romantic atmosphere enveloping them. At last, Shadow asks, “Do you think the zombie virus thing or whatever is transmittable through sex?”

“...What?”


	8. No Miracles Happen

Zelda’s phone vibrated in her pocket and immediately, she wanted to answer it but she wasn’t about to stop—she could hear gun shots, seemingly everywhere and people—anyone who was walking, seemingly dead or seemingly alive, were shot dead. She ducked behind a table, crouching and pulling out her phone as fast as her shaky hands would let her. Marin crouched beside her, looking absolutely terrified. “What are you doing?” She asked.

Green: I don’t know entirely what’s happening, but I guess some really bad people stormed the place and are trying to shoot us?

That made no sense. Zelda was sure to tell him that.

Green: It doesn’t. Just hide, Red and Blue are hiding in a weird closet.

Zelda heard a groan. She got up and glanced around—a zombie lurched forward and Zelda shoved it away. Marin yelped and pulled her away when it stumbled. “Come on!” Zelda shouted, grabbing her hand, fully intending to drag her away. She’d drag Marin out by the ankles if that was what it took for them to both get out

The zombie was huge—tall and wide, looking like a wall with arms and legs, all muscle and blood shot eyes and bloody clothes. The good news was, it was slow. The two of them easily managed to run through a random door, no idea where they would end up but, after a moment, they realized no one was following them—zombie or person—and closed the door behind them.

“What’s going _on?”_ Marin asked, but it was more of an exclamation than a question. The petal in her hair had fallen out.

“My friend told me someone had broken into here with guns.” Zelda didn’t understand. She looked around the room. There was an endless amount of metal tables covered in white sheets. Zelda didn’t think much of it—then realized there was an arm, hanging off of one of those tables. “...What’s beneath these sheets?”

She hesitantly took a step forward. Her heart pounded in her chest but she managed to pull back the sheet—when she saw the face of the woman who had been bitten earlier, she dropped the sheet and took a step back.

Marin’s eyes were wide. “Was that a _body?”_

“The woman from earlier,” Zelda breathed. “The one who got bit and...she went into this room.” She glanced around, swallowing. “...Treatment must not have worked.” She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she thought she knew briefly. All of a sudden, the lights flickered.

Marin looked at her. “Should...Should we try to find a way to escape or something?” She looked over the rows and rows of sheet covered corpses.

The lights flickered again. There was this weird feeling in her stomach and chest, a nagging voice on the back of her mind. “I think we should hide.”

Marin blinked and looked around. The room was square with one high window they wouldn’t be able to reach and the door they had entered. Somehow, Zelda just knew someone or something was coming up that hallway. The lights flickered off—and stayed off. Zelda muttered a swear beneath her breath and looked at the group chat between her and her friends. She texted angrily and quickly and then turned on her flashlight. “Where do we hide?” Marin asked.

The row of tables farthest from them were still covered in sheets, but they looked flat. Nothing was beneath them. “...We might be able to beneath the sheets. Whoever will come in we’ll probably think we’re just corpses. They might not notice us...”

Zelda took a deep breath and jogged down a row. Everything was still. The sheets, in the light from her phone, looked way too bright, except for the occasional stains of blood.

She tore one of the sheets off of the table. There was a few drops of blood at the end, but otherwise it was clear of things. “Get on.” At some point, Zelda had decided she was determined to make sure both her and Marin got out of this.

Marin climbed on quickly, but she was grimacing. She fixed her shirt and grasped the sheet. “Wow, this _sucks,_ ” she said.

“Yep.” Zelda threw the sheet over her face. Marin’s hair was falling down the side of the table, but beneath the sheet, she shifted and pulled it back up on the table with her. There was audible footsteps and a pounding on the door.

Zelda swallowed and pulled the sheets back on the table beside her. There was a bit more blood on this one. Today was not her day. She shut off her flashlight and put her phone on silent and then tucked it into a pocket in the hoodie. In the dark, she managed to climb onto the table and pull the sheet over her—the door flew open, slamming against the wall as something stepped inside. Zelda swallowed as the sheet fell over her, pressing up against her skin. It didn’t quite fall over her mouth, her nose keeping it above it. Silently, she worded a prayer to the goddesses as the footsteps drew closer.

Every footfall seemed to grow louder—she was pretty sure the footsteps stopped next to Marin and then drew closer to her. She held her breath.

There was a groan—feet shuffled away from her. The lights flickered back on and then off again. What was going on?

Another groan—footsteps right beside her head. She swallowed. The footsteps stopped. Everything was still.

Then there was another gun shot and Zelda felt the blood splatter on her. Miracle of miracles, she didn’t yelp or cry out, even as the zombie fell forward and leaned against her. 

But the footsteps were still present.

The closet was cramped, which sucked for Blue because he had come out of the closet a year ago. He swore he could still hear movement outside of the door—he swallowed, but his throat felt so dry. Next to him, Red was staring at him, his eyes wide and unblinking. None of them wanted to make a sound. Blue had already looked at the group chat, but they didn’t want to be on it too much—he had already felt like they were kind of pushing it. Goddesses, though, he felt sick. Where was Vio in all of this? Where was Green hiding? What had even happened with all that screaming?

Well, he had known what had happened. A man with a gun had came into the barracks, looking for someone specific, but Blue hadn’t caught the name in the chaos. He had apparently, shot a few people in the chest before entering the barracks. Those people had caught up with him and his accomplices.

He wipes his palms on the jeans he was given. The denim was faded and they were a little baggy, but they worked and he had still gotten a blue t-shirt, which was better than Red’s off white that had probably used to actually be white and Green’s brown wifebeater.

Another groan sounded behind the door. After a few seconds, there was another and then a gunshot. The groaning stopped.

It was dead silent.

In the dark, Red moved closer to Blue, grasping at his hand. The earlier text conversation did not stop Blue from clasping his. If Red confessed to him that he had murdered dozens of people and tortured and maimed thousands of others, he would still clasp Red’s hand. He would still look at Red the same—to him, Red was still the same, warm, kind, happy boy from middle school. Even throughout the mood swings he sometimes fell victim to, where he could be sobbing uncontrollably for extended periods of time, usually in a stall of the boy’s bathroom and sometimes he didn’t even know _why,_ or he’d just have this weird energy bubbling in his entire body and he’d be everywhere at once. ...It varied. With all of that, Red barely seemed in the same mood, but every time he locked eyes with Red, he’d give the same smile, and it _was_ the same even if it seemed thin and watery or blindingly bright.

He pulled Red closer and wrapped an arm around his torso, pulling him close but making sure his other hand is still holding onto Red’s. He swore he would make sure Red got out of there. 

Their eyes locked—Blue squeezed his hand. Red gave him a smile—it was thin and scared, but so was Red, and none of that mattered. Red would walk out of this, and it would just be something to talk about with his therapist. Well...it’d be a traumatic event he’d have to work through, but that was better than nothing.

There was another gunshot. And another. Red’s grip tightened. There was twelve more.

Blue felt his heart skip a beat. He shifted—this wasn’t it, was it? No. Not for him, definitely not for Red. He’d have to survive this, because there was another day Blue had to live, to protect Red—whether it was from a spider he was terrified of and cringed away from but would never allow Blue to kill because it wasn’t harming anything even though Red couldn’t look at it, or from some guy who just won’t leave Red alone, or a girl who thought she was harmlessly flirting but really wasn’t and _seriously needed to take her fucking hands off of him_ (Blue had never understood the whole ‘don’t hit girls thing.’ They weren’t naturally weak or anything, he didn’t go around punching women in the face or anything, but if there was something he’d definitely hit a man for doing and a woman was doing it, he’d punch them too. If there was a reason he didn’t hit women, it’d be if they were small, but that rule applied to men, and it served those girls right for touching his Red! No meant no damnit!)

But even with the fact there was gunfire, Blue found himself Thinking about the texts. Red was polyamorous. What did that mean for them? It wasn’t that he minded people identifying as polyamorous or anything, but Red was his boyfriend. Some nagging part of his mind whispered that maybe he just wasn’t enough, maybe Red wasn’t actually polyamorous, but just wasn’t satisfied with his relationship with Blue. Was that it?

He didn’t want to be an idiot. He didn’t want Red to think he didn’t support him or anything, but Red...Was that it? Blue knew he could be a little to aggressive, a little too quick to anger, and sometimes he’d playfully punch Red in the shoulder but would notice an actual bruise that Red would always clam didn’t actually hurt, or Blue would cancel their sweet little dates walking through Red’s favorite part of the city, the one with the bakery, and the candy store, and the restaurant that had the best lemonade, and even though Blue wanted nothing more than to walk around with him, sharing sips from a lemonade and kissing his lips that would always taste like a _really_ sweet lemon, he would study for an upcoming test because he wanted to stay on the football team.

“Blue?” Red whispered, softer than soft.

Blue was too busy thinking. He didn’t _deserve_ Red. That must have been it. Red didn’t love him. They were gonna break up, right after prom too, he bet. No one broke up before prom, or at least, if someone broke up with someone before prom they were assholes, and Red wasn’t an asshole. That made so much sense.

The foot steps drew him out of his thoughts. _Oh, shit, right._

There was one last gunshot. Blue’s heart skipped a beat. He pulled Red even closer and whispered, “I love you,” in his ear. Even if Red didn’t anymore or anything, Blue wanted him to know. Red squeezed his hand.

The door opened.

Zelda realized that, while Marin had collected all of her hair onto the table so it didn’t hang over, Zelda had not. She realized that had been a mistake.

She held her breath—but she felt fingers curl into her hair. Before she could think to do _anything,_ she was pulled off of the table, with the sheet still on top of her and onto the floor. She yelped while she hit the floor. The sheet was still on her, covering her vision and doing absolutely nothing to protect her. She pulled it off and then saw the gun pointed at her face.

“Don’t move,” said it’s holder. “Don’t move at all.”

Zelda didn’t move. “Who are you?” She demanded.

“I’ll be your killer if you move an inch,” he said. “Is there anyone else in here with you?”

“No,” Zelda said.

“This should go without saying, but I’ll shoot you if you don’t spill.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?” She couldn’t see his face in the dark.

“I told you to tell me where they are.”

Zelda probably shouldn’t have argued with an armed man pointing a weapon at her face while she was on the ground. “No, you didn’t.”

There was a noise, from where Marin was, like the sheet on top of her shifted. The man turned to look at the source of the noise. When he took a step towards it, Zelda gritted her teeth and slammed her foot as hard as she could into his ankle. He stumbled and she got up immediately, grappling for the gun.

“Damnit—“ The man said, but Zelda had taken enough self-defense classes to have an idea of what she was doing.

An idea was apparently enough for to have a fighting chance. Zelda kicked him repeatedly in the knee, shin or wherever she could hit. She could kick hard, at least. She kicked harder—she did not expect him to let go of the gun with one of his hands and punch her in the face.

She staggered backwards and he managed to rip the gun out of her grip. Before she could even react, he roundhouse kicked her in the chest. She fell to the ground.

The gun was back in her face. “Stupid bi—“

A sheet covered his face.

He tried to grab at it, to pull it off his face—and behind him stood Marin. Zelda scrambled to her feet and tried to snatch the gun from his hands—he attempted to struggle, but Marin tugged tighter on the sheet. She managed to pry it out of his grip ad turned it against him.

Marin stepped away, scrambling away from him and creeping closer to Zelda and away from the man.

“I hope you’re okay because that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life!” Marin exclaimed.

“Oh my goddesses, Marin, you are a _life saver.”_

The man yanked the sheet off of his face. Zelda thought he’d say something, but instead he just made a raspy, choking noise. She thought it would stop, thought he’d get a deep breath and quit choking. He moaned and blinked and then stared at both of them with glassy eyes before groaning.

Marin jumped backwards—Zelda felt her hands shake. “No,” she said, as if that would make him stop. “Do...Don’t do that.”

He groaned again, spat out a mouthful of blood and then lurched forward.

Apparently, Zelda’s aim sucked—she aimed for the head, but the bullet hit his chest. The zombie made another choking noise and then dropped. It did not get back up. The room was quiet. Zelda felt sick. Marin looked ready to dry-heave, so she wasn’t alone in this, at least. She took a deep breath, intentionally trying to avoid processing what she had just did, the scarlet staining the man’s chest in front of her. She didn’t think she was, or ever had been, incredibly squeamish. The sight of blood from injuries could make her grimace, horror movies made her squirm, but she didn’t faint, she could function—but right now, she felt like she could faint, like she couldn’t function.

She took a deep breath, willing herself to swallow the lump in her throat and turn to Marin. “Are you okay?”

“Are _you_ okay? You were head to head with him...” She looked at the corpse. “...You looked like the main character of an action movie or something.”

Zelda smiled, but she still felt ready to vomit—her stomach was churning. “...I need to find my friends.”

“Not to sound like...” She looked around. “Clingy or anything, but I don’t want to be left alone here.”

“If you want to come with me, Marin, you’re more than welcome, I don’t want to do this alone, but...” She looked around. “I’m not leaving without them.”

“I understand that,” Marin said. She took a deep breath. “I’ll come with you. Lead the way.”

Zelda was relieved to not be by herself—also relieved to not have a bullet in her face. Outside of the room it was dark. Zelda kept her body lowered, looking everywhere for movement in the darkness. She didn’t see anything—she stumbled to where she was pretty sure the men’s barracks were, but it was an actual stumble, a trip she barely caught herself on. She held an arm out and walked towards the wall. All of a sudden, the dark felt suffocating. She couldn’t see Marin. “Marin?” She whispered.

“I’m right here,” she whispered back.

“Oh.” She just felt kind of dumb now. “Okay.” She kept one hand on the wall. The wall was rough and dry. She moved slowly—Marin bumped into her multiple times. Zelda almost tripped multiple times. She kept her grasp on the gun and tried to focus—she couldn’t leave without Red, Blue or Green. She refused to.

When she got close to a doorway, the first thing she noticed was the door was ajar and there was people inside—with large guns and flashlights, meaning they’d definitely see her if she waltzed in. She heard a groan in the room and then a gun shot and swallowed. She could hear movement. She didn’t really know what to do.

“...Did _any_ of us check the closet?” One of the men with a gun asked. A few other in the room turned as if they were looking at each other. “...Are you kidding me? What part of ‘massacre’ don’t you chuckleheads understand? Move out of the way, I swear, if someone’s in there I am killing everyone in this room and then, likely, myself.”

Zelda could feel her heart hammering in her chest. In the dark, she saw a figure moving, but only just barely—it was black on black, but when she thought he was stepping too close to the closet and had his hand on a gun at his hip, she forced herself to aim where she thought was the head and pulled the trigger. 

The gunshot was deafening. It felt like the gun exploded, but it was still in her hand. Immediately, she heard every other man in the room turn to where she was and fire at her.

What she didn’t understand was how she was able to shoot so fast—it was like they all moved at a snail’s pace, time slowed to a crawl and she managed to shoot anyone who fired at her.

_Goddesses, I just killed multiple people. I think._ She shouldn’t see—at all. Was anyone even in there? There was a flashlight on the ground, flickering, illuminating a part of the wall. If any of the men were still alive, they were keeping totally silent. Zelda stepped forward and picked a flashlight off of the ground. She turned to locate Marin. “Are you okay?” She asked, keeping her voice quiet.

“Yeah, that was terrifying though.” She didn’t appear to be injured.

Zelda looked over herself—other than some blood on her, she didn’t have any sort of wound or gunshot, which was good. She took a deep breath and shone the light on the floor—a white as paper hand, curled into a fist and dripping blood was there. She didn’t look at the floor again.

Something, some sort of instinct or urge, like a string wrapped around something inside her and was tugging her in a specific direction, made her want to turn to the left. She stepped closer, towards the wall until she found a metal doorknob, glinting in the light from her flashlight. She moved slowly...

Marin stood behind her—Zelda opened the door.

She shone the flashlight.

“Fucking hell!” Blue exclaimed. Red was sheet white and holding Blue’s hand in a vice like grip but he brightened when he saw her, every trace of fear vanishing in an instant while he got up and hugged her so tight, Zelda wondered if he was aiming to break her ribs. “I thought you were a fucking murderer.”

_Well._ Zelda looked around, at the bodies she knew were there. At the moment, she kind of considered herself one—she didn’t know what had possessed her to _actually_ pull the trigger multiple times and aim at people she couldn’t even see, how had she even hit them? She’d say it was a miracle, but miracles didn’t result in death, so...like a bad miracle? A terrible, horrible one. “Are you guys okay?” She basically wheezed out, Red’s embrace making it difficult to inhale to say the words. He let go and went back to holding Blue’s hand, who had just gotten up.

Blue frowned. “Who’s that behind you?”

“Oh, right.” She lowered the gun and tried to ignore how much her arm was shaking. “Marin, this is Blue and Red. Guys...” She gestured to Marin in the darkness. “Marin. We were nearby in the barracks, a woman turned and...” That was when things started to get blurry.

“All hell broke loose,” Marin finished for her.

“Are you guys okay?” Red asked.

Zelda looked over herself—she still had too much blood on her for her liking. “Sure. Do you guys know where Green is? Because we need to find him and get out of here.”

“Yeah, we saw him earlier,” Blue said. “We tried to go to the exits—we fully intended to come back for you, but the doors are locked from the outside. And then at that point, we decided to split up so we could avoid getting found, because some guy with a gun was coming and...” He gestured tiredly to their surroundings. “We were hiding in a broom closet until now.”

Marin looked around. “Why would people want to break in _just_ to kill people right now?”

There didn’t seem to be any sort of actual answer she could come up with. Zelda just responded, “Maybe the entire universe has officially turned against us.” She looked around the room, letting the flashlight give off some light. “We need to find Green. Do you remember when you guys exactly split up?”

“Probably,” Blue answered, sounding very confident and _totally_ putting Zelda at ease with how sure his wording was. “I mean...Well, we were right out this room, I think we entered from over there?”

Red frowned. “I think that’s the only door in this room.”

“Then we _know_ we entered from there.” Zelda realized Blue was bleeding from the temple.

“What happened?”

“I ran face first into a wall.” Blue blinked and rubbed at it with his sleeve. “Probably nothing.” He looked at her. “You’re the one with the flashlight—lead the way.”

_This is like the blind leading the blind._ Zelda walked towards the door, walking slightly slower than her normal pace. She was still holding onto her gun, but it felt even more wrong in her hands than it had before. “Does anyone else want to hold onto this?”

“I can,” Blue said. Zelda gave it to him and wiped her palms on her jeans, as if the gun had left traces of gun on her hand.

Red looked at Blue as he did something Zelda couldn’t describe because she knew way too little about guns. “You know how to fire a gun?”

“Yeah,” Blue said. “My father owns one, I thought everyone’s father owned a gun?”

“Mine doesn’t, Blue. He has bipolar depression. He refuses to ever use one, and he is _definitely_ not letting me around one.” Blue nodded.

“Mine’s been taking me hunting since I was six.”

“You hunt?” Marin asked—Zelda swore she saw a grimace on her face.

“Not by choice,” he said. “It’s not even for food, just sport, it makes me feel gross. What’s so manly about a group of men lying side by side in a bush waiting to turn a deer into red dust? Nothing, it’s just dickish. Goddesses, I hate hunting.” Zelda just kept walking. She stopped when she didn’t know where to go from there, but as if Blue had read her mind, he just said, “The left.”

Zelda took a step to the left.

“No, wait, the right.”

Zelda tried to go to the right.

“Blue,” Red sighed. “It’s not the left _or_ the right. It’s straight.”

Zelda could hear Blue bite his tongue. She sighed and walked straight ahead.

She was just glad she didn’t have a gun anymore.

The rest of the night is spent quietly. Vio makes tea for him and Shadow, and since Shadow wasn’t sure what tea he’d like, Vio made him licorice and himself rosehip tea, each with a spoonful of honey and they sit on the couch watching the news as if the scientists have, miracle of miracles, found a cure already that is easy to make and distribute. All the scientists were saying was that it’d be a miracle to have a cure by the next year.

At some point, Shadow must notice that this news is upsetting him, because he surfs up close to him and presses a kiss on his cheek and his tea with only one hand. His other rests on his good shoulder. Vio just sips his tea and tries to focus on the contact, winding down.

Shadow doesn’t seem to like his tea but he doesn’t complain. Just looks at Vio every few minutes and then Vio takes a deep breath and tries to quit thinking so hard.

“I think you’re hot,” Shadow says.

Vio smiles. “Thank you.”

Shadow finishes the last of his tea in a quick gulp and then puts it on the coffee table before tugging at Vio’s shirt. “ _Any_ chance you wanna make out?”

Vio flushes and looks at him. “What?”

“Make out? You know...Kiss for a really long time? With tongues?”

Vio doesn’t necessarily want to be so open about his lack of experience, but on the other hand, “I’ve never made out with anyone,” feels like only way to tell Shadow he probably doesn’t want to make out with Vio.

“Don’t worry,” Shadow says. “I looked this up on wikihow!” He takes Vio’s basically empty cup and puts it on the table before basically climbing into his lap and wrapping his arms around his neck. “Can I kiss you?”

Vio swallows. “...Yes...”

Shadow grins. “You don’t need to be so nervous.” He strokes his cheek gently—the contact is weird, but extremely gentle and soothing. “If you get uncomfortable, you can tell me to stop or push me away.” He cups Vio’s face with his hands and leans closer.

His lips slowly move onto Vio’s—it’s soft and sweet. After a moment, Shadow shifts and grabs at Vio’s shirt, deepening the kiss drastically. Shadow’s body is so warm...Vio rests his hands on his waist—he swear, right though his shirt, he can feel how soft his skin would be...

Genty, Shadow nibbles on Vio’s lip—it catches him by surprise, but he’s pretty sure he likes it. Shadow’s tongue snakes in and Vio ca’t help but make the noise he makes—but he tries to return the gesture. It’s a little awkward, and definitely a weird feeling—but Shadow tastes _good._ Vio’s hands find their way beneath Shadow’s shirt and rest on his stomach. He moans lightly.

Why does Shadow taste so good? He needs to breathe. He pulls back and starts kissing Shadow’s neck, licking at the skin while Shadow sighs. It tastes amazing. He wants more.

He grabs the bottom of Shadow’s shirt and lifts it over his head.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay, sure, just take that off—“ Vio interrupts him, kissing him again. When he pinches his nipple, Shadow moans and his tongue finds a good spot in his mouth that makes him shiver. He slides one of his hands down his back but then puts it back on his chest. “Goddesses,” Shadow breathes and Vio can hear Shadow’s heart beat. It is deafening, it’s so loud and he smells amazing.

He puts his mouth back onto Shadow’s neck while one of his hands strokes his hair. He probes Shadow’s pulse with his tongue...It tastes so good. He digs his fingers into Shadow’s chest—Shadow doesn’t seem to like that as much. “...Vio?”

Vio licks Shadow’s neck. Would biting down be alright now? He realizes he doesn’t care—the thought of how warm Shadow’s blood would be in his mouth and how salty his flesh would taste makes his mouth water.

He’s just about to bite down. He can’t resist it. It’d be amazing. Shadow’s arms wrap around his torso and somehow, that draws him out of it.

Shadow is clinging to him—his body is warm. Because he’s alive. He is a person—a person Vio just caught himself wanting to take a bite out of.

“We need to stop.” Vio says. A splitting margarine is returning to the top and back of his head. “Like, _now.”_ He pulls away.

Shadow looks disappointed and slightly hurt, but he stops and removes his arms. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s just...” He’s pretty sure, when you’re making out, you’re not supposed to think about how good the other person would taste if you took a bite out of them. “...I wanted to...”

Shadow looks interested. “To what?”

“Shadow, I wanted to bite you. _Badly.”_

He moves some hair out of his face and turns his head. “Go ahead. I’m all yours.”

“Shadow, I was bit. I wanted to like... _eat_ you, it was terrifying.” He realizes he’s going to turn. He’s definitely going to turn.

Shadow seems to understand, but he says, “I don’t care.”

“You should! What if I killed you?”

“Vio.” He grabs onto his hand. “I want you to bite me.”

“Shadow, this isn’t like, Twilight or whatever, if I bite you, I might not stop. I might kill you. You might turn with me.”

There’s a pause. When Shadow speaks again, his voice is quiet. “Vio, I...I want to turn with you.” He grabs onto is shirt again. “I know I sound stupid...I know we don’t actually know each other super well...I know this could end _really_ badly...But I want you to bite me. I want to turn with you. ...I don’t want to just, watch you turn and...be unable to do anything. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Vio feels slightly sick. “I don’t think I would have stopped with just a bite,” he says. 

“Well, I’d rather you tear me to pieces then die and leave me here.” He crosses his arms. “I’m gonna sound like an idiot, but I feel like...Like I’ve known you for a lot longer than I have. And I love you like, like, it’s not anything new, like I have for a long time and I don’t understand it, but I really don’t...”

Vio pulls away. “No, you’re not...” His head spins. He feels exactly the same, kind of, but...it doesn’t make any sense. “No.”

Shadow crosses his arms over his chest. “I thought you liked it.”

“I _did_ like it, but you’re so cool! I don’t want to eat you!” He feels sick. He feels nauseous, he wants to throw up. He sits down on the couch, not sure when he tried to stand, and just looks at the coffee table. ...Why are spiders crawling all over it?

“So, what now? I just wait for you to turn and shoot you?”

“Yes! Because it’s me or you!”

“Well, I choose you. I don’t...I don’t want you to leave me, Vi.” The walls are pulsing. That’s not normal.

Shadow’s silent now. Vio looks at the table and counts the spiders. There’s a lot. Fourteen. That’s a lot of spiders. The walls are still pulsing. His head is pounding.

“...Vio?” Shadow reaches out and grabs his shoulder—his bad one, accidentally, but Vio can’t even hiss in pain. “Vio, are you...”

His eyes roll back into his head and he tumbles down. The world goes black.


	9. I Don’t Know

Traversing in the dark, with a flickering flashlight and a handgun that could only be wielded by a visibly anxious teenager, trying to find Green who they had no idea if was safe or injured or _worse_ was likely very damaging to Zelda’s psyche. She imagined it would be—she had taken to twirling her fingers in her hair to ground herself. The action resulted in her hair tanging and knotting around her fingers which would lead to her needing to painfully yank her hand away every five minutes, but it was keeping her grounded when she just wanted to drift away, forget about everything an distance herself through all of this.

They all moved slowly. It felt like a horror movie, or a horror video game, since Zelda was in control of her actions. The air felt cold, seeping through the hoodie Marin had let her borrow.

Sometimes, there’d be a noise—a moan from a zombie, an exhale of breath, a faint voice and everyone would start, but even with the fifteen minutes of walking down endless hallways, they had yet to really bump into anyone.

Slowly, they reached another door—Zelda didn’t know what door. At this point, they weren’t really looking for anything specific. It felt a lot more like they were wandering around aimlessly, but it wasn’t aimless, they were _aiming_ to find Green, but with no way to tell where he was, it felt aimless.

Zelda wanted to slam her head into a wall while the door opened, the same creaking noise she had heard what felt like a dozen times already. She swallowed while she stepped in beside Blue, Red and Marin—but blinked, confused.

“Marin,” she said. “Wasn’t this the room we were in earlier?” She looked around—at the tables with sheets, knowing what was beneath those sheets...

“This _is.”_ Zelda glanced around.

“Oh, it’s you guys.” Zelda almost jumped out of her skin—even though the voice was relieved and not at all threatening. She turned around—only to find Green in the corner, his hands raised. “It’s just me!”

“Oh, goddesses!” It really was just Green—Zelda was still trying to figure out how they had gotten to the same room, with the same two corpses in the same places, but the room had previously only had one entrance in a one hallway that Zelda knew they hadn’t walked through this time around, but for a minute, she just focused on the utter relief that flooded her mind now that she knew Green was safe. He was uninjured completely and didn’t have a speck of blood on him. “Are you okay?” She asked, even though Green looked more okay out of all of them.

“Yeah, more or less,” he said. “Some zombies chased me down this hallway and into here, but I closed the door and they couldn’t seem to figure out how to open it. They got bored and wandered off after awhile.”

Blue frowned. “What hallway?”

Green looked at him. “The one outside of this room?”

Red looked at Green. “But there was no hallway outside of this room?”

Marin added, with the same questioning tone, “But there was when Zelda and I were here earlier?”

At the same time, they seemed to all decide to drop this conversation topic and focus on the more pressing matter at hand—getting out of there.

“Okay,” Zelda breathed. “Okay. So, this place is full of zombies and people with guns who are trying to kill people for reasons we don’t know, the only exit we know of is locked from the outside, and trying to find another would mean navigating in the dark and hoping we don’t run into anything and possibly finding nothing.”

Marin looked up. “What about the window?”

Everyone followed her gaze. Red brightened. “The building’s only one story, it can’t be a long drop!”

“How do we reach it...?” Green trailed off, glancing at the tables. “Oh.”

Blue immediately started walking towards one in the back. “This one’s closest to the window.”

Zelda pulled the sheet off the table. The corpse on the table looked like a tween at most, probably around twelve with a pixie cut and a pink bow in their brown hair. Despite that, they were dressed in camo shorts and a black tank top and sneakers. They looked peaceful, honestly like they were sleeping, despite the bullet wound in the temple. “Sorry,” Zelda whispered, yanking them off by their arm, cold in her hands.

They landed on the floor in an awkward position that looked very uncomfortable, but obviously, the child didn’t react to whatever discomfort it would give. Blue sighed and pushed the table against the wall, directly below it. He sighed again and looked up. “Yep,” he said. “That’s glass. We’re gonna need to break that to get out.”

“Ooh!” Marin walked over to the wall. “I _found a shovel._ Let’s dig our way out!”

Green looked at her. “...Or we could break the window with it.”

Marin blinked. “Oh. Oh, yeah, that would make more sense.” She handed it to Blue. “I...I don’t know why I thought we should dig out way out.”

Blue nodded and tried to hit the glass. It did nothing. He tried again.

Zelda sighed and crossed her arms. “I wish Vio was here.”

“Why?” Blue asked. “So he can be trapped in here with us?” He slammed it into the window again and make a very frustrated noise. It wasn’t working.

“If he had been there, we could have driven away.”

“I meant more of, he would tell you you should aim for the edges of the window, not the middle.” Blue looked over at her and then back at the window. He aimed for the edge—the glass shattered.

“...Damnit.” Blue sighed and knocked out all the glass on the edges so no one would cut themselves on it in climbing

out. With that done, he threw the shovel out of it. He jumped down. “That took too long.”

Zelda looked at the door. “We should hurry.”

“Oh, definitely,” Green agreed. “Come on, you first girl I don’t know the name of.”

“Oh, okay.” Marin audibly swallowed and climbed on the table before resting her hands on the sill. With a deep breath, she went all the way in, tumbling out. “Ow! I fell on the shovel!”

“Are you okay?” Zelda asked.

“Yeah, it’s just a splinter.”

Green turned to Zelda, noticeably confused. “Who is she?”

“Girl I met in the barracks,” Zelda said. “Super sweet, probably saved my life, I almost got shot in the face.”

“What?” Green asked.

“You go next, Red,” Blue said.

“Okay...” He jumped onto the table and looked out the window. “Wow, it’s dark.”

“It’s _night, Red.”_

”It was just an observation!” He heaved himself out. “Oh, wow, that was fun!”

“Green.” Blue said.

“You go ahead.” Green sighed. “Get to your boyfriend.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Green turned back to Zelda. “What do you mean you almost got shot in the face?”

“I struggled against one of those guys—“ She gestured to the corpses. “—and he didn’t like it. So Marin almost suffocated him with a sheet, I got the gun and then he turned into a zombie.” Her legs were shaky—she felt sick. She had shot him. “...I shot him, Green.”

He gave her a sympathetic look. “Come on, I’ll help you onto the table.”

Green held onto her hand while she climbed on top of it and stood up, her heels almost slipping against the surface. She grabbed onto the ledge and let go of his hand, hoisting herself up. She basically fell out of it. She landed roughly on the ground and got to her feet quickly.

The night air was cool on her skin. Refreshing, since she was covered in sweat. She wiped her palms on her pants and waited beside Marin for Green to jump down. After a moment, he dropped out of the window, landing in a crouch before rising to his feet. “Goddesses,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “That sucked.”

“Yeah,” Zelda said. “Prom was terrible. I don’t get the hype.”

They all moved away from the building.

When they were a couple dozen yards away, they all stopped, staying silent. “...So,” Red piped up. “What do we do now?”

No one seemed to have an answer. They all just stared at each other. Zelda rubbed her arms and pulled he hoodie closed around her. “Maybe we should try to find a way home?” Beside her, Marin grimaced.

“Well,” Green said. “None of us know where we are.” He pulled out his phone and looked at it. “There’s no service, wherever we are. ...We don’t have a car or anything.”

Red spoke up. “We don’t have _anything._ ”

Green swallowed. “Yep. ...And I’ve been trying to contact my father, but...he hasn’t been responding. I mean, the message took two hours to send, but...Still. Every time I try to get my phone to do anything, it loads and crashes.”

“Well,” Zelda sighed, sitting down and resting her chin in her palm, her arm propping it up. “At least things can’t get any worse.”

Things proceeded to get much worse immediately.

The building exploded in a mess of fiery rubble that landed around them but didn’t hurt them. It was so loud, Zelda’s ears were ringing and the sudden brightness rivaled mid-daylight. Whatever was left of the building was on fire. The moaning of the zombies grew louder and they began to rise, moving away from the rubble. Blue said something like, “Oh, _SHIT, no!”_ And Zelda immediately got up.

“That was so loud,” Marin said. “...Zombies probably heard that, ones that aren’t here.”

Green cleared his throat. “Yeah, so, I know none of us know where we are or where we’re going, but we should really start moving. Like, _now._ ”

One of the zombies stopped moving and looked at all of them—and then started running, like they were on fire.

Panic didn’t set in fast enough.

_Oh, goddesses. Oh, goddesses. Oh, goddesses._ Shadow’s starting to consider curling up in the fetal position and rocking back and forth. He paces up and down the hallway repeatedly, crossing his arms and hugging them to his chest, poking his head into Vio’s bedroom and looking—has Vio moved at all? No, he’s in the exact same position. Is he even breathing? Is he going to turn? Shadow can’t tell, but he doesn’t know CPR, so his chance of resuscitating Vio is low...Not to mention, if Vio turns while he gives CPR a try, he’s almost definitely going to get eaten.

He doesn’t know why he said half the things he said. They were _true,_ but he shouldn’t have said them. They made him sound crazy.

He keeps repeating, “He’s gone be fine. He’s gonna be fine, he has to be fine,” like some sort of mantra of madness. He can’t stop repeating it. He doesn’t believe it.

He paces faster. He feels sick. Vio has to get through this. Shadow doesn’t know why—saying he needs his help makes him feel selfish, like, Vio has to live only to make sure Shadow can live another day, but saying he needs to live because Shadow isn’t sure if he can without him is just stupid! It makes him sound pathetic. Horribly, horribly pathetic, not to mention needy and clingy and _stupid._

He wishes he had a phone, or that Vio’s phone hadn’t run out of minutes. All he can do is watch the news and pray to goddesses he’s never believed in to keep Vio alive because Shadow can’t do this alone, and it is pathetic and stupid and horrible, but it’s true. There’s this part of him that insists he _needs_ Vio, like he needs air. It’s past the point of a crush. He doesn’t understand anything.

He sucks in a breath when he thinks he hears movement. _Oh, goddesses, oh goddesses, oh goddesses..._ He could hyperventilate. He could struggle to breath and asphyxiate and die right now. He’s kind of waiting for it. He thinks it should happen, any second now, however if it does happen, and Vio gets out perfectly okay and then comes to find him, possibly a zombie, or at least cold and dead on the floor, then...

A floorboard creaks beneath him as he steps on it, and now he’s certain he’s heard movement. From Vio? Well, probably. He swallows.

The realization that motion could mean either of two things hits him. Either A: Vio did not make it and is now a zombie, or B: Vio is totally fine. What if Vio needs him right now? What if a zombie somehow attacks them? Jumps in through the window or something? It’s irrational, but he needs to check on him...

Shadow sighs...And turns towards Vio’s bedroom.

It was like, all of them chose to collectively freeze. None of them had seen a zombie run and this one really did run. Like a cheetah, if the cheetah was dead and had a thirst for human flesh and had just died in a building full of hunters and other dead cheetahs as well as living cheetahs that were running in fear of it and the other dead cheetahs. Or maybe this particular ~~cheetah~~ person had been killed by an already dead ~~cheetah~~ person or hunter or something...

Green was quickly learning he was not good with metaphors.

At the very least, when the zombie was there and tried to grab someone, the person grabbed snapped out of the frozen mindset they had and tried to shove the zombie away.

Green watched while Blue tried to turn the safety on his gun off and aim it at the zombie—but that was apparently really difficult, because he had also been the person who had been grabbed, though it was something Green’s still frozen mind didn’t seem to process. The distance he had shoved the zombie away was short and it was already back in his face. “Fuck!” Blue shouted, dropping the gun.

Immediately, Green grabbed the gun and tried to aim it at the zombie—who was no longer standing up and had pinned Blue to the ground. “Shit, shit, _shit!”_ Blue was pushing against his chest—the zombie looked so thin, more like a skeleton than a zombie, gnashing teeth and staring with bloodshot eyes. Somehow, it was much stronger than it should have been.

Green pulled the trigger with it aimed at the zombie’s head—there was a click. It did not shoot. He checked the safety—it was off. He pulled the trigger again.

“Green, could you shoot it?” Blue asked. The zombie kept groaning and snarling. Seeing Blue struggle against him was pretty terrifying, since Green had always thought Blue to be so strong—and yet, he was losing against a corpse.

“I’m trying—it’s jammed!”

Zelda grabbed the zombie’s jacket and yanked him off quickly—how did it move so fast? Blue barely had enough time to rise onto his elbows and kick the zombie (in the face) back. It’s hand—singed in some places to a charred black but still appearing weirdly human with the small freckles and wrinkles on it and it’s bitten nails—wrapped around his ankle.

“Oh, fuck!” Blue exclaimed, trying to kick it away again. Marin was searching through the pockets of the hoodie Zelda had on like it was her ticket to salvation—Green saw the zombie’s mouth touch Blue’s calf and realized he was being bitten. Blue kicked again, seemingly harder, but it seemed to do less.

“Oh, goddesses...” Marin had something in her hand—she tossed it to Green.

_A switchblade!_ Green was closet to Blue and the zombie Blue was currently shouting _no!_ At, like it was a rabid dog biting his leg, though he was still cursing.

Praying to the goddesses for any sort of strength, he stepped forward and rammed it as hard as he possibly could into the zombie’s skull.

It’s hand around Blue’s ankle twitched and loosened, it’s bloodshot eyes going glassy. Blue kicked it away and it fell over, limp. Green swallowed and pulled the switchblade out. Blood covered the blade and his hand. He looked at it and then at Blue.

“Ow.” Blue said.

Red dropped to his knees beside him, grabbing Blue’s shoulder. “Blue, are you bit, are you okay?”

Blue pushed his hand away and struggled to his feet. “I’m fine, we need to start moving!” He gestured to more zombies that had started to creep out of the shambles that remained of the building and towards them, the source of the noise. 

“Right.” Green wiped the blade against his sweatpants and then his pals before handing the switchblade back to Marin who dropped it back into the pockets on Zelda’s hoodie. “Thanks.”

Zelda grabbed Marin’s hand and the two of them started following Red who was fussing over Blue. Green followed behind them—that had been so incredibly disturbing, he didn’t even know how to put it into words other than “so incredibly disturbing.”

They ended up walking for three hours straight in what seemed like a random direction.

After those three hours, they all collectively collapsed on the ground. They hadn’t ran into any zombies for about an hour, and any other ones they saw they usually ran away from.

Green sat near Red and Blue.

“Are...you okay?” He kept seeing Blue get hit by his head.

Red had somehow gotten Blue to roll up his pant leg. “Yeah.”

Red was frowning. “I can’t find it.”

Green frowned. “What?”

“The bitemark.” Red looked up at Green—and grinned. “It didn’t even tear Blue’s jeans. He isn’t bitten!” He looked ecstatic.

Green breathed a sigh of relief. He had been stressing over it for awhile, but had did it silently, still walking fast, and looking around paranoid. But Blue didn’t seem as alright as this news made Green think he was—his arms were crossed. And he wasn’t even looking at Red. “That’s good, then.”

“Yeah,” Blue mumbled.

“That was terrifying,” Marin said. “That was even worse than that one time I went mountain climbing with my father and my gear broke.”

“What?” Zelda asked.

“I don’t know why we went mountain climbing, we’re both scared of heights.” Zelda nodded and sat down beside her. “Sorry, I rooted through your pockets. I just remembered I had a switch blade and...”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. It’s your hoodie.”

Marin crossed her arms. “But you were wearing it.”

Zelda smiled weakly. “I’m glad you found it. Otherwise, Blue could have...”

“Yeah...” She shivered a bit. Zelda leaned closer to her and unzipped the hoodie before tugging one side of it around Marin. “Thanks.”

They stayed silent. “Do you have any idea what happens now?” Marin asked. “Like, we stopped to rest for now, but...In the long run?”

Zelda sighed. It was cold, but not cold enough to have to really worry about dying or anything. Mostly just cold enough for discomfort. It was dark. She wished she did, but if she was being totally honest, as honest as she wanted to be with Marin... She wanted to tell Marin and herself that everything was going to be fine, but in the back of her mind, all Zelda had on her mind was the man she shot to death. Maybe he had been a zombie, but at the very least, he had once been a man...Now he had no chance of being cured. Because he was dead.

A part of her said, _fuck optimism._ This sucked. She was scared. She was kind of hungry. She was exhausted. Nothing made any sense anymore. She wanted to say, “I have no fucking idea, but I bet it’s going to be bad. We’re all going to die, and likely in the worst way possible because in these couple of hours I’ve somehow managed to lose all hope.”

She kept it to, “I don’t know.”


	10. Storms Suck

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he realizes is the pain is gone.

There is no pain—he doesn’t have a headache, his bite wound doesn’t hurt and he feels...refreshed. Then he realizes Shadow is right there—his eyes are glassy. When Vio sits up, he steps back with a horrified, “Oh, _goddesses!”_

He rubs at his eyes—he feels so good right now. Not even good, just normal. Not in pain, not tired, not drained. “Shadow?” He murmurs. He fears this is a dream or something, that Shadow isn’t actually staring at him, choked up and Vio isn’t in bed—that in reality, he is throwing himself at Shadow and tearing him to bits.

He chokes out a sob. “Thank the goddesses, I thought you turned.” He climbs onto the bed and throws himself in Vio’s arms. “Hold me.”

Vio does. “Are...you okay?”

Shadow rubs at his eyes—they are brimming with tears, washing down his face. “Are _you_ okay?” He asks.

“I...I feel better than I have in a long time.”

Shadow sniffs and buries his face into Vio’s shoulder—Vio isn’t sure if it’s his injured or his uninjured one—there’s a bit of soreness, as if Shadow accidentally gently pressed against a bruise, but it’s totally fine. “I...I just kept waiting in the living room for you...for you to wake up.” He runs a hand down Shadow’s back and he trembles. “...It felt like my world was ending.”

The problem is the world is ending. Currently. 

There’s a knock at the door, the front door. It interrupts their sweet moment—but both are positive that isn’t happening. Then there’s another knock. “...Someone’s at the door,” Vio says. It’s obvious.

Shadow looks at him. “I’ll get it, Vi.”

“Where did you put that gun?” He asks. He’s already gotten bit. He didn’t turn. He might turn the next time. Of course the chances of a zombie knocking on the door and politely asking to be let in makes no sense, but Vio decides he’d rather be paranoid and alive then stupid and dead/turned.

“It’s in my room, because you wanted me to take the gun with me to bed.”

“Right.” He gets to his feet—he’s a little weak, but he doesn’t feel sick anymore. “I’ll go grab it. Wait by the door.” 

Shadow just nods and obeys.

He grabs the gun quickly—but stops to glance at the window. When he hurries back to Shadow, he asks, “When did it start raining?”

“A couple hours ago,” Shadow says. “Really coming down. It fit the mood, since I thought you were dead.”

Vio nods and turns the safety off. He has a bad, terrible feeling—he wishes he could just continue the sweet, perfect moment with Shadow, so he can kiss his forehead and comfort him...Vio needs some comfort now, but at least he doesn’t feel like he’s dying. “Go ahead and open the door.”

The knob twists in his hand but the door doesn’t open. “Shit.” He unlocks the deadbolt and looks at Vio—he smiles at him. Shadow really looks adorable...He hadn’t realized how fond of him he really was. Shadow tries the knob again, pulling the door open.

Outside, it is dark. The sound of the falling rain is loud, drowning out most other sounds but the howling wind and the wind chimes on the porch, twirling and twisting and singing, a tangled, ringing mess. A tiny, familiar voice says, “Vio?”

The first days sucked, but the second day seemed to be going much better.

The group had walked about twenty seven miles. It was not good—Zelda’s feet had begun to hurt so she took off her heels and had to walk slower, attempting to avoid anything she probably wouldn’t want to step in with her bare feet—puddles of blood, sharp looking things, etc. “I regret deciding to keep my heels,” she said at some point, sighing sadly, which Red thought was pretty sad because he knew Zelda loved those shoes more than his father loved him and it was barely an exaggeration.

By noon, they had all gotten exhausted—even more exhausting was how windy it was getting. “A storm’s coming,” Marin said. “I can tell. I bet there’ll be lightning.”

“Lightning is cool,” Green said, and then, “Oh, wait, we don’t want to be outside in the middle of a storm.”

“Do we have any idea where we are?” Red asked—he knew he didn’t have any idea, it he was kind of hoping that maybe he was the only one, even though that likely wasn’t the case. His parents were probably worried about him—under the assumption that they were still alive _to_ worry. That thought alone made him worry so much he felt sick.

They all stopped—they were at a street sign. Red looked up at it. “Hey, isn’t this Vio’s street?”

Green frowned. “We’ve never been to Vio’s house.”

“Yeah, but I know he lives on Quarter Avenue.” He looked down the barren street—there was some pieces of people and puddles of blood, but no bodies, other than them. “And I’ve seen pictures of his house.”

Behind him, he can hear Blue cross his arms. “We should go check on him. Make sure he’s safe. I mean, last we heard, he brought a stranger home with him.”

Green nodded. “That’d be worth our time while I try to get maps to work.” He looked over at Red. “Do you know which house is his?”

“Sort of,” he said. “I’ve never been there, you know he wasn’t allowed to have us over, but...” He looked at the houses. He hoped they were full of families. Families who were likely frightened, but hopefully not grieving. “I remember seeing in pictures...they have a garden bed full of some dark colored mulch and like, a white picket fence in between them and a neighbor. And their driveway’s all sloped...”

“That’s more than the rest of us know,” Zelda said.

“I knew he lived in a house,” Blue said helpfully.

“I’m still not entirely sure about his last name,” Marin admitted.

Red glanced around. “Down this street,” he decided. “For sure.”

The streets felt empty as the group walked down them—Red kept glancing around, muttering “That’s not it...” Just to take another few quick steps, get excited and then shake his head, disappointed all over again. He sighed and slowed down, walking side by side with Blue. “You’ve been quiet.” He glanced at Blue. “Ever since we got out of that closet.”

Blue glanced at him. “I have.”

“Mhm.” Red looked over at one of the houses—it had a metal fence all the way around the building and the driveway wasn’t as sloped as Vio’s—Vio’s looked like a mountain, he remembered because in a conversation, Vio had complained about how hard going to school in winter was due to it and had sent Red a picture when he hadn’t believed it was that difficult. “...Is it because I told you I was poly?”

Blue looked at him, his face instantly softening. “Oh, Red...”

“Blue, I...I get if we need to talk about it, since, like...you know, but...I feel like you’re mad at me.”

“No.” He sighed. “No, Red, I’m not mad, I just...” Green looked over at them, Marin spared a glance and then looked away, seemingly actively tuning them out in an attempt to give them privacy. “Forget it—we’ll talk about this later, promise.”

Red pouted and looked at him. “Don’t give me that look—“ He stopped and looked at something towards the end of the street. “What’s that...?”

A zombie shambled forward—it looked like it had been turned for awhile, it’s skin mottled with rot, it’s face gaunt and eyes yellow, the sun beating down had managed to burn any skin that wasn’t rotting. Whoever they had been, they had been wide, large and tall with shaggy chin length hair now falling out. Blue immediately pulled Red behind him. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Another zombie no one had noticed looked over at them, but it stayed still, just watching. Blue tried to kick it away. “Not this shit again.” He had been walking on the street—he tripped over the curb and fell halfway onto a ransacked house’s lawn. It lurched forward, trying to grab him. He slammed his foot into it’s chest and groped the lawn.

His hand found a smooth, wooden handle. Without even thinking, because it’s Blue’s specialty if he was being honest, he slammed it into the zombie’s head—it suddenly went still, falling on top of him. It’s eyes were closed—it stopped breathing. He kicked it off of him. He felt sick. Everyone stared at him like he just killed someone, and he definitely felt like he had.

“Blue, are you okay?” Red asked, voice soft, hand reaching out to grab his shoulder but Blue took a step back, swallowing, trying to get his eyes to not be so wide, his heart to quit beating so fast. 

“I’m fine!” He shouted. His hand was still around the hammer—the head was wet with blood.

Red looked at him, definitely not buying it, but his gaze shifted to something behind him. “What...? Guys.”

Somewhere across the street, a house stood on a hill, the driveway tall, with a large garage, a white picket fence, and a flower bed full of black mulch...The door to the garage was covered in dents, but it was still closed. There was blood and carnage in the flowerbed. One zombie was just lying on top of the fence, blood dried. The world seemed to stop spinning.

Blue reached out to Red. His hand rested on his shoulder, but he didn’t face him. “Red...?”

The front door was open. Corpses shamble in and out. One of them looked blond, but was too short and definitely not Vio. Other than that, there was no sign of him. “Is he...?” 

Blue stepped closer, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Come on...It’s Vio. He’s fine.” He pulled Red closer, so his back was against his chest. “He’ll be fine...”

It started to rain—a slight drizzle, clouds rolling over the hills, bringing an overcast darkness.

“...What if he isn’t?”

“He is.” Blue said. He didn’t actually know—he didn’t like lying to people, but he wanted to believe Vio was okay. “He’s alive, Red, he’ll be fine.”

“We should...” Green took a deep breath. “Try to figure something—“

There was a loud roll of thunder in the distance—several zombies started. It started raining harder. “Oh, geez,” Blue said. “We should really try to figure out what to do from here.”

They didn’t know where Vio was. They had no car. No sort of shelter to protect them. What the hell were they supposed to do now? Was there anything they could do?

The wind started to pick up—howling and whipping at the clothes, cutting right through them and freezing them to the bone. This absolutely sucked. They didn’t expect the zombie apocalypse to be any fun, but this, this was hell—a cold, wet hell, but absolute and miserable like you’d think hell to be.

But then the wind started blowing harder, pushing the hair from Blue’s face, tangling Zelda’s and Marin’s behind their head. He could feel dirt land in his eyes. He blinked and looked—off in the distance, there was a large, grey column, moving closer...

It was like the cold wind had managed to snatch the breath from his lungs. He felt a weird mix of numb horror and confusion. “Guys...”

Everyone was looking at it—and they couldn’t take their eyes off of it either—a tornado. Or maybe it was a hurricane—Blue didn’t really know the difference, but all the same, there was a large, swirling, rotating column of wind and air approaching—and it was coming quickly.

A paired clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning snapped them out of it—the wind shook the branches on nearby trees, almost drowning them out while the streets began to flood. “Oh, _SHIT!”_ Blue shouted. 

“What do we do?” Red asked, before, more panicked, “ _What do we do?”_

“Um...” Marin said. “I’ve been in tornadoes before—except, maybe they were hurricanes? Oh, god, I don’t know, um...” She looked around. The tornado was still coming. “...You’re supposed to take shelter in a basement, or a cellar, or a small room on the ground floor, or beneath a table indoors.”

It couldn’t be that far away. “Well, what did people do when they didn’t have those things?” Green asked.

“They either found shelter or died!”

“ _Fuck,”_ said Zelda.

They didn’t even really get a chance to run.

Very, very faintly, Green could feel breath on his ear. “ _Three days,”_ someone whispered, voice soft as silk, quiet as a mouse. 

He made a noise like, “ _hnnnmr?_ ” There wasn’t a response—in the back of his head, he noticed his hair was still kind of damp, and he was exhausted and everything hurt. He was covered in bruises and small cuts, a very noticable soreness was on his entire stomach and chest and his hands were pretty banged up—but he was very much alive. His hands were bleeding a lot, as were his knees and a few cuts on his face.

“ _You,”_ someone whispered, and Vio realized it was still raining, because the rain was washing some of the blood off his hands. “ _Have three days.”_

He looked around—the whisper didn’t sound like anyone he knew. All of a sudden, the thunder in the distance was near deafening. He peeled himself off the ground, pulling a pebble out of a scrape in his hand and looked around. His friends were littered around him—Zelda was closest, her forehead against her arm, hair splayed out, a tangled, dirty, wet mess. She was still, covered in just as much bruises and cuts, still wearing her yoga pants, shivering in her tank top, one of the heels broken in her shoes.

She looked dead.

Hesitantly, Green approached her. Was she okay? She had to be...She didn’t seem like a zombie or anything, so she was okay, that was how it worked, right?

He crouched down beside her and grabbed her shoulder—her skin was cold and damp. “Zelda?” His voice was barely audible in the rain.

Another flash of lightning reached across the sky and Zelda jerked into an upright position with a gasp. She was breathing heavily, her eyes wide. “Oh my goddesses... _what happened?”_

“I don’t know...The others...” He looked around, counting—there was three other bodies. He relaxed the slightest bit. “Come on, we need to find a way out of this rain.” He helped her stand, she wobbled a bit and then kicked off her shoes again.

“How are we even alive?” She asked.

Red and Blue were right next to each other, fingers tangled in each other’s, just as much bruised and covered in dirt as Green and Zelda. Green shook Blue roughly—Blue tried to punch him and sat up quickly. “What...?”

At least there wasn’t zombies—but zombies would be the least of their worries if they stayed out here for too long. “Come on,” Green said. “We need to get up.”

Blue shook Red. “Red...Red...” He shook him again. “...Babe, you need to get up.”

Red didn’t. Blue’s voice became more panicked. “Oh, fuck, Red— _get up!”_

Slowly, Red groaned. “...Blue...?”

Blue sighed. “Thank the fucking goddesses.” Without another word, he gather Red into his arms and got to his feet. Marin was already up, arms crossed over her chest, shivering.

Green looked around. There was just an endless assortment of trees—but he could see a house, not to far away. He took a step towards it. The quiet ringing of wind chimes through the howling rain and booming thunder was what really drew him in. Something told him he had to go _there._ The others followed him.

When they were on the porch, Blue hesitantly put Red on his feet, not beneath a sort of covering, and rain no longer fell on them. Green knocked. He waited, only about three seconds before knocking again. There was sounds of movement inside. Someone twisted the door knob—Green heard something unlock.

The door opened.

Red whispered a small, “Vio?”

Inside, there’s two boys—one is the one who opened the door, slightly shorter than the other, pale, thin, dressed in black with purple hair. The other really is Vio, just pointing a gun at them.

He lowers it. “You guys?”

Naturally, they all go fucking crazy.

The only people who aren’t in the weird, group hug that’s on the floor since they practically tackled Vio was the other boy and Marin. They’re all talking, something about how worried they all were, how they were so confused, Green is pretty sure he sees the other boy step forward and say something like, “ _Stop, he’s injured,”_ but Vio raises a hand to stop in and he stops in his tracks. Marin stands awkwardly by him.

No one really understands what anyone is saying.

After a minute, they manage to quiet down and also got off the floor and let Vio stand—the other boy instantly gets closer to him. “Wait,” Green says, kind of just processing all of what they had said. “Did you say he was injured?”

He looks at Vio. “I just banged my shoulder on something really hard,” Vio answers. “Haven’t been able to use it recently. He’s just worried I’ll injure it again.”

The boy nods, as if to confirm that is what happened.

“Um, Shadow,” Vio says. “These are my friends—this is Zelda, Blue, Red, and Green.” He gestures to each of them respectively. “Guys, this is Shadow. When this first started, he pulled over and rescued me from a bunch of zombies. We ended up escaping the city together and now we’re...here. How did you guys get here?”

“Tornado,” says Marin.

Vio looks at her. “...What?”

Despite the sorry state they’re in, Shadow and Vio look fine—granted, Shadow is definitely in a skirt, but whether that is a fashion choice or because he can’t find any other clothes, Green doesn’t know. They look a bit tired, they are clean, dry.

“We went looking for you,” Green says. “We found a shelter, but people with guns came in—which is where we got this jammed gun and found Marin and got a change of clothes. We escaped, Blue was almost bit, but apparently, zombies can’t bite through denim. We went off until we were in your neighborhood, Red’s seen pictures of your house, and your house was swarming with zombies, and then there was a tornado, and now we’re here.”

“Okay,” Vio replies. “But I have like, a thousand other questions, like...” He frowns. “What happened to Erune?”

No one responds—they don’t know.

Vio looks at Blue. “I thought you told them I was gonna be here.”

Blue frowns. “I didn’t know you were gonna be here.”

“What are you talking about? I told you, you said you would tell them.”

Blue looked confused. “...I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vio.”

“...How are you guys alive?”

Zelda shrugs. “Miracles happen, I guess.”

Shadow grabs onto Vio’s hand. Green raises an eyebrow, but Vio doesn’t notice. “...I’m sorry, you guys must be exhausted. We have a bunch of rooms, I’m...Goddesses, I’m happy to see you guys. ...Also, kind of tired and confused, but mostly happy.” He sighs in relief.

Green feels ready to pass out.


	11. More Death and Problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, there’s a warning for ‘major character death’ for a reason. Also, suicide. Yeah. This is really bad, probably one of the worst chapters I’ve written. I’m sorry.

They manage to work out rooms relatively easily. Vio and Shadow are sleeping in the same room—which noticeably makes Shadow ecstatic—and then Green, Red and Blue are all sharing a room, because no one wants to be alone right now, and Marin and Zelda are sharing a room.

Shadow jumps on the bed, spreading his legs and looking at Vio. “I just want to state that, for the record, I think the fact that you aren’t eating me is a _huge_ turn on.”

He chuckles. “Yes, a lack of a cannibalistic appetite is what I personally look for in men.”

“It’s hot,” Shadow agrees. “As is a head of hair, and no rotting skin. I very much like the fact that you’re not a corpse.”

“I do too.” He lays down on the bed—he doesn’t feel tired, but he knows the others must be exhausted. It’s still storming out. A roll of thunder sounds outside, Shadow lays down beside him, his hand finding Vio’s thigh. When Vio doesn’t reject his advances, it rises up to his jeans, pulling back the waistband. “You’re, um...” It’s not that this is bothering him at all, he’s enjoying this sort of attention—but how does he show he likes this?

There’s a bright flash of lightning—the light creeps through the curtains and into their dark bedroom. Shadow stiffens, swallows, there’s more thunder.

Vio smiles. “You aren’t scared of a little thunderstorm, are you?” He cups Shadow’s face, runs a thumb down his cheek. His smile is nervous.

“Of course not!” Shadow scoffs. “I’m not some dumb kid, why would I be scared of thunder?” He swallows again and looks at the window before getting on top of Vio, his hands on the bed, next to Vio’s body, one knee in between his thighs, the other on the outside.

Vio can feel his breath on his lips. Slowly, Shadow pushes his lips against Vio’s—it soft, gentle, sweet. Another flash has him jolting away, turning his head to look at the window. Vio laughs. In the dark, he swears he sees Shadow’s face flushing—he finds his hand. “Wanna try that again?”

He goes back to that position on top of Vio he was in—Vio puts his hands on his waist, to keep him there. They kiss again—when there’s more lightning, Vio pulls him closer, even when Shadow stiffens.

For a minute, he’s able to enjoy this—then he thinks about the others.

They acted like they hadn’t got any of Vio’s texts. And hadn’t Zelda lost her phone or something? And why had people broke into their shelter? They hadn’t made it sound like they were stealing supplies or anything—plus, that was like, immediately after this had all started, it had taken that long for people to resort to violent ways for supplies? Not to mention, it took Vio and Shadow four days to get here in a car, but it sounded like it had took the others two days to go from Vio’s house to here via tornado? There was a large amount of time between when they found his hoe and when they had gotten here.

Nothing’s adding up.

Shadow pulls away. “You stopped,” he says.

“Sorry, just...thinking.” He sat up. “Something’s...weird, about the others...We’ve been here for...how long?” All this thinking is making the bite on his shoulder hurt. Is that normal? “Did they time travel and skip a couple days or...how are they alive?”

Shadow shrugs. “Maybe it’s just best not to question it.”

“Maybe,” Vio says, but it feels more like he’s just repeating what Shadow’s said.

Shadow sighs. “Guess I won’t be getting laid tonight.” He lays down beside Vio, not seeming bothered by this. “Guess I’ll just admire you in the moonlight that...there isn’t any of.” There’s another flash of lightning, he jolts again. “Oh, come the fuck on.”

The night is calm, with Shadow pressed against him—so why do his thoughts keep racing? He sighs and forces his eyes to shut. Shadow pecks his cheek and curls up close, their legs tangled in each other. Vio finds himself going to sleep rather easily.

“Yeah,” Green says. “This is a good idea.” He’s laying at the foot of the bed, with Blue and Red next to each other. It’s surprisingly comfortable—and it likely will stay pretty comfortable so long as Red and Blue don’t like, make out or something. He knows how Red likes physical contact, and how Blue can get the slightest bit possessive of him...

For the most part, though, they’re just laying down. They aren’t even looking at each other. It’s a little weird—for the most part, Blue and Red are always touching—if not joined at the hip, they’re joined by their hands, at least but Blue’s turned over on his side, while Red stares at his back.

“Better than the floor,” Blue says.

Green agrees with that.

Red sighs and sits up, the blankets shifting with him. “Are you mad at me?”

Oh no.

Blue sighs. “Red...”

“You’ve been acting weird, ever since you learned I’m poly...” He rubs at his arm. “I should have told you, but I didn’t and I’m sorry! I just...”

Green frowns. “Wait, you’re what?”

“Polyamorous?” Red asks. “I said that on the group chat.”

“Yeah,” Blue sighs.

“...I don’t remember that.” He goes to his phone and goes to the group chat and shows it to them, but before they can really look, his phone dies. It’s lasted way longer than Green could have hoped. He sighs. “Anyway, good for you, Red.”

“...Blue,” Red says. “I’m—“

“Red, you don’t have to apologize,” he cuts him off. “It’s not you, it’s me.” Green prays to the goddesses he is not going to witness a break up.

“...What are you saying?”

“it is honestly not you, Red. You make me so happy, I love you to fucking pieces, but...” He trails off.

“I don’t understand! Because I’m...Blue, I still love you. That doesn’t change this. And, I know this is something we’re going to have to talk about later, because I’m like...” He makes a frustrated noise. “But can we not now? I’m still freezing, everything hurts, and I’m scared out of my mind, I cannot handle a break up right now, Blue. Or-Or at the least, instead of this stupid ‘I still love you, it’s me,’ thing you’re doing, you just say it!”

“Red.”

Yep. He’s witnessing a breakup.

“I’m sorry, Red, I just...”

“Are you kidding me, Blue?” He sounds tearful. “I don’t understand you!”

“It was gonna happen eventually!” Blue argues.

Green just prays something makes them stop fighting—he takes it back. He’d rather the two of them make out in front of him then fight like this.

Vio’s only been out for a few minutes, but when he opens his eyes, the room is lit, bright. He pulls away from Shadow and puts his arm over his eyes—the can still feel the light. He rolls over—and right off the bed.

He slams into the floor—his bite doesn’t hurt. His head is pretty clear.

Shadow moves to the edge of the bed, looking down at him, grinning. “Vio?”

He murmurs something.

Shadow stands and gets off the bed, hovering over him. “Vio?” He repeats. He’s still grinning. Is this a dream?

He grabs Shadow’s hand. Shadow’s eyes widen—that grin doesn’t look right. He pulls Shadow close. “You’re on the floor,” Shadow says.

Vio pulls him down by the shirt and kisses him. He tastes salty—it’s good.

At some point, their positions change—Shadow’s on the floor, Vio on top. Shadow looks beautiful.

...Except it’s not bright, it’s the middle of the night. If Vio focuses, he can hear wind and rain, and there is no light and Shadow isn’t awake with that grin, he’s asleep...

He kisses Shadow again, harder—no, it’s still bright, Shadow’s awake.

“Vio...Vio...Vio...Vio...Vio...Vio...Vio...Vio...”

He tastes so good.

He can’t stop.

He honestly can’t stop. He can’t.

It’s dark again, and Shadow’s awake. “Vio!” There’s a hand on his chest. “Vio! Stop! Oh, goddesses... _STOP IT!”_

He grabs a fistful of Shadow’s hair and yanks his head to the side. “Oh, no...Vio, stop. Vio!” Shadow won’t stop screaming.

In the back of his mind, Vio notes this is _bad._ He needs to stop—but he can’t.

His screaming got louder—he kicked Vio away. Blood...Shadow was bleeding. A lot.

He coughed up blood, spat it out and tried to move away from him. “Vio, stop! Goddess, stop! Please!”

He tastes good. He doesn’t want to stop, even if Shadow is screaming for him to.

Slowly, Shadow stops struggling. He manages out one last little, “Vio...” and shuts his eyes. His blood is warm, dripping from Vio’s lips into a puddle on the floor—every bite tastes better than better. He hears the door open, but doesn’t get up—why would he go look at the door when Shadow’s here, tasting like heaven, sweet and salty, warm, fresh?

Pain explodes in the back of his skull and he falls forwards on top of Shadow—because that still is Shadow, just missing a few organs and some skin. In the background, he can hear someone behind him, but now all he can hear is his own heart beating and Shadow’s death rattle, his eyes still shut...

Reality ensues. He snaps out of whatever he was in—the back of his head is bleeding, he feels dizzy, someone is definitely behind him and—that’s definitely Shadow’s blood, on his hands and mouth. He realizes he turned. He doesn’t know what to do but gag at the taste of Shadow’s blood, all over him.

“Vio...?” He gets to his feet and slowly turns around to face Red, looking horrified. Blue looks scared out of his wits, Green just doesn’t look like he’s here at the moment.

“I got bit at some point,” is all he can say before he blacks out.

It doesn’t actually take long for him to regain a sort of consciousness—and when he does, he almost faints again. All around him is blood and organs and corpses. He is covered in blood. He looks around. Zelda’s face isn’t recognizable and if it weren’t for her long hair, Vio wouldn’t have known it was her. Blue and Red are equally mutilated, Green’s just been torn apart and he’s looking into the face of a stranger with red hair, her eyes large, almost accusing. Because he did this.

He can’t breathe. He did this.

He turned.

He looked around—hadn’t the others tried to get him to stop or something? When he attacked one of them, wouldn’t they try to stop him? Didn’t Blue have a hammer? Hadn’t one of them found a gun? Hadn’t they at least tried to pull him off?

He killed Shadow. Shadow had _trusted_ him, he had been asleep and Vio had attacked him...He had tried to get Vio to stop, why hadn’t he hurt him? He stands—there’s a gun on the bedside table, why didn’t Shadow try and get to it? Shadow should have shot him.

He dry-heaves and coughs up something red. He’s gonna turn again, isn’t he? How the hell did this happen? How come none of them were zombies?

Shadow groans. Well, never mind.

Vio picks up the gun. He just killed them all. He can’t turn again, he can’t do that... He looks at Shadow—who’s slowly getting up. He takes a step closer. “Shadow? I’m sorry. I really am.” Sorry really isn’t about to cut it. Shadow’s eyes are open, looking at him like he’s a snack. Shadow groans—it sounds pained.

He feels a stab of guilt. Shadow should be in pain, his entire torso is ripped open. An intestine is falling out. It’s his fault. Vio put him in pain. Vio killed him.

He doesn’t want to turn again. He takes the gun and looks it over before pointing it at Shadow. “I’m so sorry, Shadow. You don’t deserve this.”

He has to shut his eyes when he pulls the trigger. He hears the bullet go through his head and hears Shadow drop to the floor, still.

He refuses to open his eyes. He tries to think back to the night, to before he attacked Shadow, when they were just in bed...

He keeps that image, and that image alone in his mind as he presses the gun to his temple. _Goddesses, forgive me. I’m so sorry._ He is not about to turn. He is not about to continue on like this, after killing his best friends, a boy he had a crush on, and an innocent stranger.

He pulls the trigger. He doesn’t even hear the gunshot.

A hand grabs onto his collar, pulling him back and turning him around. “Where’re _you_ going, handsome?”

Vio grins, looking at Shadow and putting his hands on his waist. “I was just going to find my boyfriend before I need to drive myself home.”

Shadow grins, pulling Vio closer. “You’re boyfriend, huh? He treat you good?”

Shadow’s dressed in a black skirt today with a t-shirt. He saw some assholes messing with him over it, but Shadow didn’t seem to care. He looked good in it. “Mhm.” He cups Shadow’s cheek. “Very good. He’s cute and sweet and he’s a great kisser.”

“Oh, yeah?” Shadow’s face has been steadily getting closer to his own. “How great does he kiss?”

“So great.” He runs a hand through Shadow’s hair. “We’re having a date tonight—I think we’re gonna make out before the two of us go to homecoming.”

Shadow licks his lips. “That sounds like fun.”

Vio kisses his hairline. “I need to get going—if I show up to late, my mother will get suspicious, she thinks I’m just going with friends.”

“Kiss goodbye?”

Vio cups his chin and brings his lips to his. His boyfriend, being his boyfriend, deepens it and doesn’t pull away for a minute. Vio slides his hand down his back until it reaches his ass. “A part of me wishes,” he says when Shadow pulls away. “You decided to wear a dress tonight.”

“Oh, you like seeing me in a skirt?” He presses a kiss to Vio’s cheek.

“I like seeing you in general.” He frowns. “Did you...shave your legs?”

“...Yeah? Is that weird?”

“No, no, I just...I didn’t think you would, I guess.”

“I like having my legs shaved,” Shadow says, seeming weirdly defensive about this. “I keep rubbing them together in bed, it’s really weird. It’s a pain to shave, but I like it, don’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging.” He presses a kiss to his cheek again. “See you at four thirty?”

Shadow grins. “I’ll be there. Assuming you don’t get another flat tire.”

His phone vibrates inside his pocket—he doesn’t pick it up. He’ll look at it when he gets home.

He pulls into the driveway and looks—Red’s excitedly chattering on the group chat about prom. Zelda says her mom can drive her and Green, so there will be enough room in Vio’s car for his boyfriend, though he feels a bit guilty about choosing his boyfriend over two of his best friends—even though one of them is his ex and the other the girl his ex has a crush on, because they’re still friends.

He pockets his phone and looks into one of the mirrors on the car. He has to now—Shadow’s left hickies on him before, and he doesn’t want his mother to flip. His phone vibrates again—Shadow’s sent him a picture. Of his hand, holding a box of condoms. _You think these will fit you?_

Vio snorts and shoves the phone back into his pocket. His mom is in the living room, by the mirror, fixing her earrings. She looks pretty, he guesses, but pretty in the ‘I’m just put together and very professional way’ not the ‘oh, that woman is pretty.’ “How was school?” She asks.

He shrugs. “School. Where’s dad?”

“Warming up the car. We’re leaving for the airport.”

“Right.” He puts his backpack down on the couch and goes to the fridge.

“I’m surprised,” his mother says. “That you didn’t want to go to homecoming tonight.”

“I have homework anyways,” he says. He wants to smile, but he isn’t facing his mother.

There’s a tense silence. “We’ll be back in a week, Vio.”

“Okay.”

The _moment_ the door closes, Vio pulls out his phone and texts Shadow.

At around four thirty, the door bell rings—Vio gets up and goes to the front door. Shadow’s leaned up against the doorway, holding a hanger with a plastic bag over it in one arm and a reusable grocery bag in the other. “Aw,” Vio says. “You care about the environment.”

“I mostly just cared about hiding the condoms, but sure.” He’s still in that skirt that shows off most of his legs. It looks amazing on him, but his teenage hormones make him want to tear it off of Shadow. “Did you get sexier or something?” He asks. He licks his lips, looking Vio up and down.

“Funny. I was gonna ask you the same.” He closes the door behind Shadow. Shadow walks in—this is not the first time Shadow’’s been over. He glances around, as it to make sure nothing’s changed. Vio takes his things from him, drapes the clothes over the back of the couch, places the bag next to the couch’s leg—then promptly pick up Shadow by the hips, bending him over it. “Did your skirt get shorter?”

“I _may_ have hiked it up a bit,” Shadow says. “Thought you’d like it.”

He runs a hand over the back of one of his thighs. “I do like it, but you know what I’d like more?”

“If it was at my ankles?”

“Yes.” He slips a finger past the waistband and slowly pulls it down, runs a finger over Shadow’s hipbones. He pulls it down more until it slides all way down his thighs, knees, calves. “...Damn. You’re gorgeous.”

Shadow grins. “I know.”

“Are you wearing a _thong?”_ He asks, but he’s smiling. He pulls at the string and rubs it against Shadow’s entrance.

“What does it look like?” Shadow asks. He stretches lazily and looks back at him, but he moves his ass back a bit into Vio’s hands. “Mm...You should quit rubbing against it and put something in there...”

Vio kisses his cheek—he kind of wants to. But he pulls away. They’re gonna wait. “Maybe later, gorgeous.”

Shadow sighs and gets up, pulling his skirt back up. “Whatever. I’ll get inside your pants yet, Vi.”

“I know that.” Shadow fixes his skirt and stands, stretching his arms above his head. “I _want_ you in my pants. Be good and maybe you’ll get in them.”

He glances at the clock—they should really start getting ready. Homecoming’s later and they don’t want to be late, especially since Vio has to pick up Blue and Red—Erune’s got her own ride tonight. “We should get dressed.”

Shadow stands on his toes and kisses Vio’s cheek. “You want to see me undressed?”

“Come on,” he says, because if he says yes, Shadow will strip and he needs to control his hormones enough to not bang Shadow into the wall for the entirety of the night. “Let’s get ready.”

“Aw,” Shadow says, wrapping his arms around Vio’s neck and standing on his toes until both of their noses are touching. “What if I want to just stay inside with you?” His lips brush against something _wonderful_ on his neck. “We can eat popcorn and watch _The Corpse Bride_ for the zillionth time and kiss a whole lot. It’ll be fun.”

It’s tempting. “But we already paid for homecoming tickets and I’m supposed to drive Red and Blue, remember?”

“They can get a taxi.”

“Shadow.”

“Fine,” he sighs, grabbing the hanger and tearing the plastic bag off—it’s a nice, dark colored suit. If Vio’s behind honest, he half-expected to see a black dress hanging.

“I didn’t think you’d choose something so...” Masculine? Not a skirt? “...traditional.”

“Disappointed?” Shadow asks.

“Never with you.”

He grins. “Don’t worry, Vi—I’m gonna put on some makeup because no one can stop me.” Vio can’t help but smile while he walks towards the bathroom.

He’s actually kind of looking forward to this.

The music is loud, he’s gonna have a headache afterwards as the chorus in the speakers slowly fade out, Shadow’s hand in his. When a slow song starts playing, Shadow tugs him towards the dance floor by the shirt collar, likely wrinkling it. When he lets go, he tries to push the jacket to cover it. When he’s done, Shadow forcefully grabs his hands and places them on his waist before wrapping his arms around his neck. “You’re dancing with me,” he says, barely audible over the music, but more audible than it would have been thirty seconds ago.

He smiles—Shadow looks great. He put on a white, button up shirt with a black dress jacket and black slacks, not to mention the shiny black dress shoes that were almost definitely heels considering Shadow is taller than he was when he came over to Vio’s house. He also put on mascara, eye liner and a bit of foundation to cover some acne.

For a moment, all is peaceful. He pulls Shadow closer. He can’t stop looking into his eyes—Shadow purposely left the top two buttons open, showing off his pale chest... Shadow leans forward and presses his lips against Vio’s. It’s soft and gentle. Vio pulls him even closer. Vio’s hands drop to his hips. Shadow presses a kiss onto his cheek.

“You should take me out of here,” he says, smiling. “So we can go make out in your car.”

Vio looks around—Red and Blue are also slow dancing, Green and Zelda laughing with Erune while they sip small water bottles. All occupied...

He moves his hand and grabs at Shadow’s. “Come on,” he says.

Shadow grins, successful.

Outside, it’s cool, crisp, a breeze passes by, twirling leaves and moving them onto the street from their trees. It’s early October, so a bit of ways away, Vio can see Halloween decorations on houses. Vio opens the door to the back seat, lets Shadow climb in before getting in himself, closing it behind him. Shadow wastes no time in resting his hands on his shoulders and capturing Vio’s mouth in a forceful, dominating kiss. One of his hands go this lower back, but Shadow’s skin is beneath two layers of fabric.

When Shadow pulls away, there’s a thin string of saliva still connecting their lips while Shadow pulls of his jacket. “You have _no_ idea how badly I’ve wanted to do this to you, Vio!” He’s back to kissing him. Vio tries for his lower back again, but Shadow’s shirt is tight enough, there’s not much room for his hand to get in there like he wants, so he instead uses his hands to slowly unbutton his shirt.

Shadow’s tongue enters his mouth. One of his hands is still on his shoulder, but the other’s grabbed a fistful of hair. Vio sucks hard on his tongue, fumbling over the buttons. He yanks Vio’s head to the side, exposing his neck. “Oh, _fuck,_ Vi.” He licks his lips. “You look so _good.”_ He presses a series of hot, open mouthed kisses onto his neck. Vio moans and finally undoes the last button on Shadow’s top.

“So do you,” Vio manages out, looking at his chest. He rubs his thumb over a nipple and Shadow moans. “Damn, you’re thin...”

Shadow nips at his skin. “Mgh...You taste so good...” Vio gasps—Shadow alternates between licks and kisses and pulls at Vio’s shirt. “Can you take this off?” He tilts his head, bats his eyes and—well, fuck, Vio’s okay with losing his virginity in a car, so long as it’s with Shadow.

He has to pull his shirt off and then immediately, Shadow is back on him, kissing, nibbling on his collarbone, licking all the way up his neck, kissing back down. His lips slide over one of his nipples—he puts his hand back on Shadow’s lower back, tracing circles into his skin.

One of Shadow’s canines press against his nipple and he gasps while Shadow sucks _hard._ He pulls away. “You like that?”

Vio can only really manage a nod—it feels amazing. He’s touched himself before, but Shadow’s mouth on it feels like heaven—warm, wet... Shadow kisses his shoulder and then goes back to sucking on it, swirling his tongue around.

Vio’s hands slide down—he rubs the cloth string on the thong Shadow’s still wearing against his hole. “Fuck,” Shadow says. He squirms and goes to Vio’s other nipple. Vio takes this as a good sigh and moves the string out of his way, rubbing his finger against it instead. Shadow moans, still sucking.

He presses it in gently. “Oh, _fuck!“_ Shadow pulls away and looks at him. “Damn!”

“Should I stop?” Vio asks. It’s just the tip of his finger, but maybe Shadow doesn’t like it.

“Fuck, _no,_ deeper, Vi.” He slides it in farther—he’s tight, but Shadow seems to like it. He puts it in as far as it can go, until Shadow moans and grabs at his crotch, and then slowly pulls it out. He’s about to add another finger when his phone, in his pocket, vibrates. 

“Shit...” He sighs. He pulls it out—it starts vibrating again, going off like crazy. Shadow takes it out of his hand and presses it between his legs. “Shadow—!”

It starts vibrating again—the others won’t quit texting him. Shadow presses it more firmly. “Yeah?” Vio moans when it vibrates again. “That feel good?”

It doesn’t stop—the others are texting pretty rapidly. About what? Maybe they noticed he was gone, but then you’d think they’d also notice that Shadow’s missing too and assume they were together, likely making out, it was pretty obvious. Shadow’s kissing his chest again, without a care in the world.

He nods when it vibrates some more. He can feel a wet spot forming in his boxers from the attention Shadow’s been giving his nipples. “Shadow, give me back my phone.”

He does, not even resisting. Vio has twenty messages from the others. He sighs, unlocks his phone and goes to his messages to see why they’re freaking out like it’s the end of the world. He gasps and looks up when he feels something on his groin...

“Shadow,” he says.

“What? I gave you your phone back.” He rubs at Vio through his pants. “Mm...I want to see you Vio...”

He looks back at his phone, trying to concentrate through Shadow’s (much wanted) groping.

Zelda: Vio, WHERE ARE YOU

Green: Vio, we’re freaking out. We’ve been calling Shadow but we go straight to voicemail.

Red: Vio, are you okay?

Blue: Vio!!! Where u at, bookworm

Zelda:something’s happening.

When he looks back at Shadow, he’s rubbing his face all over Vio’s crotch. “Shadow...” He has no idea how badly Vio wants him right now, but the others are panicking and he doesn’t even know why. “We should go see what the others want. They’ve been trying to call you too.” When it came to trying to contact them, the others usually texted Vio but called Shadow, because Vio would just text back about how he didn’t want to pick up the phone where as Shadow was fine talking. 

“Phone’s on airplane mode.” He pulls the zipper down with his teeth and Vio isn’t sure if he can get any harder. “Goddesses, Vi...You’re _huge._ ”

He forces himself to push Shadow away. “Seriously. We’ll continue this later. We don’t even have condoms right now. When we get home, we can do this.” He feels like he’s also trying to convince himself to not grind against Shadow’s mouth right now. He zips up his pants and puts his shirt back on which is still inside his jacket. Reluctantly, Shadow buttons up his top before pulling out his phone—presumably, to turn airplane mode off, because it’s now buzzing worse than a beehive. He just slides it into his pocket.

He looks at his texts, asks what’s happening.

Zelda: So a girl dropped all of a sudden, Lana tried to give her CPR but the girl jumped right back up, pinned her to the ground and tore her to pieces with her teeth. So, now, all the students who attended homecoming are running around the hallways desperately, trying to find an exit that will work because the doors we entered from aren’t working, and now tons of people are just falling down and...

He frowns—he’s only at the part where Lana’s been torn to pieces—which doesn’t sound real, he doesn’t understand but he can feel the panic, as if Zelda sent that too with the text. “Um,” Shadow says. “Vio?”

Vio looks at him. “What?”

”There’s a homeless guy in the parking lot.”

Vio looks—that’s obviously not why Shadow looks so disturbed. It’s because while they were making out and totally getting ready to have sex, he wandered over to their car and has been staring through the window at them for, likely, a while now. Creepy. The two of them are barely even legal, Shadow turned eighteen only two months ago.

“Hey!” Vio shouts at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

He doesn’t respond. There’s...something wrong with his appearance. He looks...hungry. Which makes all of this even more creepy. Was he wandering around the parking lot, trying to find some hot teens making out in their cars? He probably wouldn’t have noticed them if Vio hadn’t been moaning so loud.

“Get lost!” Vio shouts. “We’re barely even eighteen, what are you doing looking through people’s windows?” Was he looking for a car to steal? He doesn’t know—his mom’s tried to ingrain into his mind that all homeless people are either lying about being homeless, thieves, or drug addicts. Vio tries to ignore what his mother says, because he knows that homeless people are a thing that exists and his mother’s dumb, but this one’s been watching him make out with his boyfriend for who knows how long, so he isn’t inclined to think the best of him.

He’s silent. He’s covered in dirt and grime—no. Wait. ...That’s not dirt, that’s dried blood from his neck.

“Goddesses,” Shadow says. “Look at that on his neck.”

That’s a bite mark.

“That’s one hell of a love bite,” Shadow says. “I wish you could give me one like that.”

Vio grabs his hand and squeezes it. Now he’s a little more worried—okay, at worse, this is a creepy homeless man that’s been watching him make out with his boyfriend and grope each other. At best, this is a homeless man who was trying to patiently wait for their attention and needs medical help—despite Shadow’s joke, that’ bleeding. What bit him? A dog? ...Another person? Something in his stomach twists. “...Are you injured?” Vio asks.

There’s a groan. “Should I call an ambulance?” He asks.

Another groan—but it sounds pained, raspy. “Stay here,” Vio says. “I’m gonna see if he needs help.”

He opens the car door and steps out—the man seems more focused all of a sudden. “Hey, do you need help? I can call an ambulance.” He closes the door behind him.

Immediately, the man lurches forward—really quick too. Vio slams himself backwards and into the car, kind of forgetting it was there. The man tries to take a bite out of his head and Vio tries to push him away. From inside the car, he hears Shadow shout his name, but he’s a little too focused in making sure this man’s mouth doesn’t come anywhere near his face. He tries to grab Vio’s forearm, so he pushes his hand away, but one of his hands is focused on pushing him away from the chest. “Shit!” Vio shouts. He considers calling for Shadow, but he doesn’t want Shadow to get hurt and he doesn’t know what he can do to help. 

The man makes another raspy groan, gnashing teeth and scratching nails. For a moment, Vio thinks, for sure, this is it.

Something hits the man in the head, knocking him to the cement. Shadow—who had somehow, very quickly, gotten to the trunk of Vio’s car, grabbed a tire iron and managed to hit the man in the head with it. 

He made a pained noise and tried to get up—Shadow had split his head open. He grabbed at Vio’s ankle, his nails scraping his skin—before Vio could even shake him off, Shadow hit him even harder in the temple.

He’s still.

“Goddesses.” Vio leans against the car, unable to tear his eyes away from the grizzly sight—but this all feels strangely familiar...”Oh, my goddesses.” He steps away and wraps his arms around Shadow. His legs are shaking.

“Did...” Shadow’s eyes are wide. “Did I just beat a man to death with a tire iron?”

“We...We should call an ambulance...” He did—he’s also saved Vio’s life. Vio isn’t sure what to do—this man needs an ambulance. They need to call the police. What if this homeless man has a family or something? But what about his friends? He needs to help them. “Shadow...”

Shadow sighs and nods—he still looks shaken. Vio wants to stay, comfort him, hold him tight, but he can’t choose him over his friends, right? He kisses his temple. “Call an ambulance, okay, Shadow? It was self-defense, not even self-defense, he almost...” Wait, what just _happened?_ Did that really happen? This doesn’t feel real anymore. He’s so dizzy. “Call an ambulance, I’m going to try and help the others, and once this is all over, I’m taking you back home with me, and I’m going to hold you tight and never let go, okay?”

Shadow nods. “O-Okay.” He swallows, pulls out his phone—for a minute, Vio swears he sees blood all over Shadow’s shirt, thinks he’s been hurt but he blinks and it’s gone and Shadow’s okay.

Vio kisses his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

It turns out—that was a lie.


	12. Zelda Needs A Hand

As soon as he approached the doors, he immediately wanted to turn on his heel and go back to Shadow—he could hold his hand. He could kiss him, hold him, be close...And they could wait for police to arrive, someone who knew what to do. He had grabbed the tire iron from Shadow—even though it was covered in a man’s blood. He tried the doors to the main entrance—sure enough, they didn’t open. They were mostly made out of glass with a metal frame and bars to pull and push the door open. Reluctantly, Vio slammed the tire iron into the glass, shattering it, taking closer to the edges until he knocked it all out.

After the entryway, he noticed that all of the hallways were brightly lit and he didn’t see many windows. Just a brightly lit hallway full of lockers—with bloody footprints leading towards the gym...and blood on the lockers.

He swallows—no backing out now. He pulls out his phone. “I’m in here, Shadow’s calling the police,” he texts. “Where are you guys?”

Zelda doesn’t respond—which is worrying. Green is working on a message, Blue texts, “Red and I are hiding with in the boy’s locker room. Those things are everywhere!”

“What?” he texts.

He gets his answer, but not from Blue.

There’s rapid footsteps coming from the gym. Before Vio can react, someone comes barreling towards him.

He falls, barely catches himself with his hands and the other person is no better than he is. “...Midna?”

She looks up at him—she has a nasty wound on her shoulder. “Do I know you?”

“Not really, but you know my boyfriend. I’m Vio?”

She shakes her head. “Whatever, we need to get—“ She gestures. “—out of this immediate area, but none of the doors are _working!_ ”

Vio points from where he came. “The door wouldn’t open, I smashed the glass with a tire iron and managed to get in.”

Midna looks and notices the glass, sparkling in the crappy florescent lights of the school hallway. “...Then we should both leave through there _now._ ”

“Why? What’s happening?”

She looks down at the floor—she’s just wearing a simple black dress with a floor length skirt. “...Some girl just dropped all of a sudden...You know how Lana’s trying to become a doctor? She went to go give her CPR, and when she got up, she...She just ripped into Lana...And when she fell down dead, she launched herself at someone else, and then Lana got up—“ Her voice cracks—she clenches one of her fists. “...Cia ran to hug her, was going to drag her out and was already trying to call an ambulance, but Lana...” Her eyes are wide. “We need to leave, now.”

“I need to find some of my friends.”

Midna looks at him like he’s stupid. “...You’re stupid,” she says. “If one of those things find you, they’ll try and eat you, and I watched Lana get to like, nine people, she literally killed like, all of my friends here in _minutes_ and she didn’t stop. And then all _those_ people got up and started eating people. You’re not gonna stand a chance against them.”

“I have a tire iron,” Vio says—it’s not gonna do much. Midna looks at him. “Alright, look, you go out there, Shadow’s calling the police right now, but I need to help my friends.”

“No, that’s the thing—Cia was on the phone for an ambulance for so long because they didn’t have any to send. This thing is happening all over town, Vio—the police aren’t gonna get here in—“

There’s footsteps. Midna pales. “Oh, _shit,_ of all the times to _not_ have my switch blade on me, oh, _fuck._ ”

“Go to the exit,” Vio says.

She shakes her head. “I’m never going to another school dance,” she mutters, getting to her feet and going towards the door. “This is almost as bad as the last one I went to...”

Vio swallows—there’s more footsteps, someone is coming.

It’s Lana—good thing Midna isn’t here.

She looks like a corpse—she is pale, breathing heavy, her blue hair streaked with blood, her chest torn open. A snapped rib juts out of her chest, her breastbone’s gone and Vio can see organs falling out of her abdomen. She turns her hazy eyes onto him, blood leaking out of her mouth, making a raspy moaning noise before walking forward.

_I liked Lana,_ Vio laments, brandishing the tire iron. _She was so nice to me in algebra._

Lana tries to grab his shoulder and take a bite out of him, and Vio swings it into her temple. 

She crashes to the floor. She claws at the tiles, smearing blood and letting out a _way_ more human sounding moan. “M-Midna...?”

She stops breathing.

Vio feels sick and numb and cold and hot all at the same time. _She tried to bite me,_ he says, but that doesn’t feel like a justification. _She killed a ton of people. ...But she’s dead._ And then; _Is this what Shadow felt after he killed that homeless man?_ He made a mental note to hug Shadow tight and kiss him on the mouth next time he saw him.

He forces himself to keep walking until he finds the hallway that should lead him towards the locker rooms. There is a dismembered hand sitting in the entrance to the hallway—pale, bloody, clenched in a fist. For some reason, Vio looks closely at it—it’s a bright white, covered in blood—no...It’s a glove covered hand. ...He hopes whoever it’s owner is is still alive. He glances around the hallway and looks at the boys’ locker room door. It’s locked. He texts on his phone that he’s outside the locker room.

The door opens. Blue and Red look at him. “I’ve a tire iron,” he says. He is splattered with blood at the moment. They look at him and then Red hugs him tightly.

“Are you okay?” Blue asks.

“Not really,” Vio says. “Some guy tried to take a bite out of me, Shadow killed him. And now I’m in here and there’s blood everywhere.”

“Is Shadow okay?” Red asks.

“He’s calling the police right now, but I’m not sure what that’s doing.” He rubs at his eyes. “Come on, we can find Zelda and Green and then an exit.” When they reach a hallway, Vio checks to make sure it’s empty and then halts. “...Maybe you guys should leave.” He gestures to the door, the only exit it seems people can find. “Go and find Shadow, I’ll get Green and Zelda and hopefully anyone else I see out of here and then we’ll wait for law enforcement.”

“What?” Blue asks. “No way, we’re not just gonna leave you.”

“But if there’s people who are eating people and we run into any more than one of them, you guys could get hurt,” he says. It’s not that he wants to be alone right now—he doesn’t. This is terrifying, but he needs to know at least some of his friends are safe. “Come on, just get out of here, I broke the glass on that door, you should be able to get out while I try to find Green and Zelda.” They don’t move—there’s a groan somewhere down the hallway and they both look at him. “I’ll be fine, and I’ll make sure they’re fine.”

“No way,” Red says at the same time Blue says, “Alright, Vio.”

Red looks at him. “You’re joking,” Red says.

“We’re not really gonna be any help to him, Red—let’s get out of here and keep Shadow company.”

“But—“

“Come on, Red.” Blue grabs his shoulder. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“I’m not worried about me!”

“Come on,” Blue grabs his wrist, like he fully intends to drag Red out if he needs to. He glances at Vio. “You better get the fuck out of here alive or I’m gonna kick your ass and...I don’t know, kiss your boyfriend or whatever makes you angry.”

“Blue, we can’t just—“ Blue proceeds to drag him out. “Be careful, Vio!”

This is horrible. Vio’s never been more scared in his life. He looks at his phone, Green’s texted him.

Green: Zelda lost her phone.

Green: And her hand.

Green: we’re in the nurse’s office with one other girl, the door’s closed, there’s a zombie outside, hurry.

Zombie? It looks ridiculous on the screen, but Vio won’t question it. He walks quickly, glancing around—every time he hears moaning he tenses—he starts down one hallway—and finds a total of ten people, covered in blood, shambling around, and there’s nine corpses on the ground, beginning to get up. Vio skips over that hallway, but none of them seem to notice he was there. He tries to remember where the nurses’ office is—he’s been there only once.

But then he finds a dismembered hand—he looks it over. It’s cut at the wrist, fingers limp, covered in blood and it’s beside a classroom door that’s splattered with blood. Vio thinks for a moment—it doesn’t sound possible. How can a door sever someone’s hand from their arm? He looks at the door.

What kind of classroom door has blades on it? There’s a sharp one, digging into the wood of the frame. He feels sick—he tries to think. It’s Zelda’s hand, he can tell from the weird, triangular birthmark on the back of her hand, a single, dark triangle. Gagging, he picks it up—of they can all get out of here, he can drive Zelda to the hospital or something, and maybe they can reattach it? Oh, goddesses, this is _horrible._

He just hopes they’re okay.

“Alright,” Green says, looking at Zelda who’s trying to keep a rag over the stump her arm ends in now, still bloody and torn. “Vio’s on his way here, he’s going to help us.”

Zelda looks up at him. “Help us how? What is he gonna do, is he a surgeon?”

“Blue says he has a tire iron and can take down one of those zombie guys.” He’s pretty sure there’s only one at the door—it keeps slamming on it, trying to get in. Green’s also pretty sure it’s the one responsible for his best friend’s lack of a hand.

Zelda’s on one of the bed things in the office, dripping blood on the paper covering it while the girl they found presses a ton of pressure on it and keeps it at about Zelda’s head, something about circulation. “He’s gonna die.”

“Hopefully not,” Green says.

“That’s not reassuring!” Zelda exclaims. Green’s pretty sure if he had just got his hand roughly severed from the rest of his arm, he would be crying hysterically. The zombie slams on the door again, loudly.

“We should have grabbed her hand,” Marin says. “I’m looking at the internet and it starts by saying what to do with the severed body part but we don’t have it and I feel like I need to do something, but what the hell am I supposed to do!” Her blue dress is torn, covered in blood and all of a sudden, her flower in her hair’s visibly wilted. Like even it is scared, has no idea what’s happened and what’s been happening.

There’s a noise outside. Zelda’s eyes widen—there’s one last slam on the door from the zombie and then all is quiet. There’s a knock. “Guys, are you in there?” Vio asks.

Green rushes towards it, unlocking the door and letting Vio in. “I stepped outside for _one_ minute and now the gym is full of corpses!”

“The school is full of corpses,” Zelda says. She’s pale, shaky and shaking, a cloth still pressed against her wrist where her arm ends. She notices Vio’s carrying a hand. “You found that?”

“Yeah,” he says. He looks kind of disgusted, kind of scared. “What happened?”

Zelda groaned. “One of those things chased me and Green down a hallway. Marin over there—“ she gestured towards Marin, red haired, pale, dress soaked with blood that couldn’t all be Zelda’s. “—opened a classroom door and told us to hurry in. It was right behind us—it grabbed my hand and slammed the door shut while it lurched for us—but it kept doing that. Over and over and over again. It didn’t stop. I...” Her fingers around the cloth tightened it’s hold. “...It was bad. And then another one entered from a classroom conjoined in it, so we had to run again and then the same one followed us.”

“I almost slipped on a puddle of blood,” Marin said. “And that one’s been banging on the door for hours.”

Vio’s splattered with blood, but doesn’t seem to be injured. “Well. It can’t bang on any doors anymore.” He sighs. “Goddesses, this is the worst school dance I’ve ever been to, we need to get out of here.”

Zelda gets to her feet, stumbles, nearly falls and Marin grabs her, helps her back up. “Did...anyone else make it out?”

“Yeah,” Vio sighs. “Red and Blue should be out there with Shadow, I ran into Midna. Now we just need to get out and I’ll stop playing hero and we’ll wait for the ambulance.” He looks out into the hallway. He just hopes they all get to the exit.


End file.
